Some information about this was posted in a different thread, but I will make a new thread for this since I think it's a distinct phenomenon worth discussing on its own.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_ResignationIn addition to the millions of people who have been removed from the labor force due to dying from Covid, millions more have taken early/unexpected retirements, and millions more have quit. Some families have moved from 2 income-earners to 1, because childcare is too expensive to justify both parents working, others have moved in with family since they cant afford to live independently and can therefore survive prolonged unemployment, others have been able to reduce their living expenses and quit their 2nd or 3rd job. I think many others have simply quit, even without a long term plan, because they are sick of being exploited.
In the US, "essential workers" were called "heroes", yet paid minimum wage (which is not enough money to afford rent anywhere in the US), abused daily by mentally ill rightists who think Covid is a hoax (and some have even been murdered for telling people to wear masks), have risked contracting Covid daily (and many have had employers who told employees to come in while sick with Covid!). Despite unemployment reaching levels not seen since the Great Depression, the stock market has gone up and rich people have made literally trillions in profit due to the pandemic. Meanwhile, non-elite people are starving.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/billionaires-pandemic-1-trillion-wealth-gain/Business owners have tried to control the narrative by calling it a "labor shortage" and saying "no one wants to work" or "no one will apply for jobs". Yet it is not uncommon for young people with college degrees and respectable resumes to apply to literally hundreds of jobs and not hear anything back. Recently, one person applied to 60 job openings from employers who complained "no one wants to work". Yet only one bothered to interview him:
https://www.wptv.com/news/national/florida-man-goes-viral-after-applying-to-60-entry-level-jobs-getting-1-interviewSeems like businesses are trying to extract as much work as they can from existing understaffed employees, without raising their pay or hiring new workers.
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In the US, workers in many large corporations have recently gone on strike:
Striketober is the labor strike wave in October 2021 by workers in the United States in the context of strikes during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the month, more than 100,000 workers in the United States either participated in or prepared for strikes in one of the largest increases of organized labor in the twenty-first century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StriketoberIs America experiencing an unofficial general strike?
[...]
Americans are also quitting their jobs at the highest rate on record. The Department of Labor reported on Tuesday that some 4.3 million people quit their jobs in August. That comes to about 2.9% of the workforce – up from the previous record set in April, of about 4 million people quitting.
All told, about 4 million American workers have been leaving their jobs every month since the spring.
These numbers have nothing to do with the Republican bogeyman of extra unemployment benefits supposedly discouraging people from working. Reminder: the extra benefits ran out on Labor Day.
Renewed fears of the Delta variant of Covid may play some role. But it can’t be the largest factor. With most adults now vaccinated, rates of hospitalizations and deaths are way down.
My take: workers are reluctant to return to or remain in their old jobs mostly because they’re burned out.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/13/american-workers-general-strike-robert-reichBut academics at Cornell University launched a strike database on May 1 that uses social media and Google alerts to keep track of all the strikes and protests happening in the U.S., even if they involve just a few workers. The database shows a picture of growing worker activism, of small actions that tell a story of how people at workplaces small and large are feeling after 19 months of a global pandemic, says Johnnie Kallas, a PhD student who is the director of Cornell’s Labor Action Tracker. It has documented 169 strikes so far in 2021. “Workers are fed up with low pay and understaffing, and they have more labor market leverage with employers needing to hire right now,” he says. “You are seeing a little bit more labor unrest.”
Of course, compared to half a century ago, there still aren’t many strikes in the U.S. There were 5,716 strikes in 1971 alone, according to government data from when the government tracked smaller strikes. And the share of unionized workers in the U.S. is near an all-time low, with just 12.1% of workers represented by unions last year.
But the activism comes at a time when approval of labor unions—even among Republicans—is trending upwards—and when a low unemployment rate is giving leverage to workers who have long put up with poor conditions and pay.
https://time.com/6105109/workers-strike-unemployment/Many of the workers on strike are Republican voters, yet they don't see the irony in the fact that Republican politicians don't support non-elite Americans.
Notably absent in this show of support, however, are any Republican elected officials — even those who directly represent the Battle Creek area.
Neither U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Grand Rapids) nor state Sen. John Bizon (R-Battle Creek) have publicly commented on the Kellogg strike. Meijer and Bizon did not respond to requests for comment.
“I can tell you that our plant in Battle Creek is probably 70% Republican,” said Heather Greene, a 15-year warehouse crew leader at Kellogg. “[But] this isn’t a left or right issue. … There’s no place for politics when it comes to a living wage.”
“Even though we aren’t hearing from the elected Republicans, this isn’t about party, and I personally hope that they will see that and … realize that it is OK to support striking workers,” Greene said.
https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2021/10/29/as-kellogg-strike-stretches-past-3-weeks-workers-say-theyve-noted-lack-of-gop-lawmaker-support