According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs in September in search of better pay or better job opportunities.
That record number is up from the 4.3 million who quit jobs in August.
“Labor now has the initiative, and the era of paying individuals less than a livable wage has ended,” Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US, told CNN. “This strongly suggests that rising wages are going to be part and parcel of the economic landscape going forward.”
Sectors with the highest percentages of workers quitting include trade, transportation, and utilities,” reported the Washington Post. “There were also high levels of people quitting jobs in retail, professional and business services, as well as leisure and hospitality work like arts and entertainment, hotels and restaurants. A whopping 6.6 percent of workers in accommodation and food services quit their job in the month.
“The decision by millions of Americans to leave their jobs shows the “increasing confidence workers have in securing better-paid jobs elsewhere,” Michael Pearce, senior U.S. economist with Capital Economics, said in the report.
Millions of workers have dropped out of the labor force during the pandemic. For some, the risk of contracting COVID-19 has been the primary reason. For others, childcare issues have kept them from full employment.
Friday’s report noted that there were 10.4 million job openings in the United States on the final day of September, which is close to a record level.
The country has regained the majority of jobs lost during the pandemic, but there are still four million fewer jobs now than in February 2020.