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- For the last two years, it seems everyone has been quitting their jobs.
- Gen Z, who bore the brunt of early 2020 layoffs and job losses, led the way.
- Now, Gen Z is suffering from lack of mentorship, tenure, and stability at a pivotal point in their careers.
The first time a close friend at work quit, I was heartbroken. The next time, I was rattled. After the fourth or fifth, though, I knew the drill.
Of course, as a 20-something, I knew my work friends would move on someday. But I, like many others, was unprepared for the onslaught of resignations that began in April 2021. It reminded me of what teachers would say on the first day of AP history class: Look to your left, and now look to your right. By the end of the year, one of those people won't be here.
The cascade of quits over the last two years created a generative machine: Workers see others quitting, then they quit in turn. Short-staffed companies work the remaining employees harder — leading them to quit.
For a certain subset of younger workers, who entered the workforce as the Great Resignation picked up steam, quitting has become a way of life. That's created a vacuum of institutional knowledge and a set of managers who are focused on searching for new talent or leaving, too. When faced with those conditions, Gen Z has adapted to a new normal: When in doubt, find a new job. Welcome to Generation Quit.
"What's really important here is that young adults are not getting the socialization to workplace norms, and they're also not getting mentoring," Pamela Aronson, a professor of sociology and an affiliate of women's and gender studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, told Insider.
"There's so many more disruptions, and there's so much less of a sense that this is a place I want to be for a long time," Aronson said.
The nearly 100 million people who have quit in the last two years were mentors, work wives, allies, and team members
Jasmine, 22, a department store photographer, is familiar with my AP history metaphor.
When she first started her role over the summer, she noticed that workers were hired in pairs of two. "Very rarely" did both end up staying, she said.
It wasn't her imagination. A little over 47 million Americans quit their jobs in 2021, a record. Then 2022 said, hold my beer. Over 50 million workers said goodbye last year, and it's a trend that's shown no signs of slowing, based on the latest months' data.
The Great Resignation was increasingly dominated by Gen Z. On a certain level, this made sense: The youngest workers were the first on the chopping block in 2020 layoffs, and quickly became attuned to the reality that no, your company is not your family.
They weren't the only ones having that realization. As pretty much everyone began leaving, the workers left behind were more burnt out and overloaded. For people early in their careers, that meant mentors leaving, and remaining team members forced to plug holes left behind by the staff they were hemorrhaging.
Recently, Jasmine's favorite coworker — who started just a week or so after her — left. It's been "disheartening" to see so many people leave, she said. Now, she's on her way out, boomeranging back to an old role where she has more guaranteed hours and opportunities to interact with photography students at her alma mater, where she's pursuing another degree.
"We don't owe any big businesses anything. The main reason why I want to go back to my college job is because I feel like I have great mentorship," she said.
"I love that job. I feel like I owe to give back to that and give back to that community. And that's how I'm going to do it."
When your job doesn't pay enough to afford housing, why stay loyal?
Gen Z has been accused of being flighty or disloyal to companies. 70% of those surveyed by Oliver Wyman who are loyal to their current jobs are still actively and passively looking for new roles. But the way they see it, they're not being any more disloyal than their employers.
They're also wary that the firms promising pie-in-the sky salaries and benefits might quickly reverse course. Already, some are seeing tech offers rescinded, reminiscent of the early pandemic hiring reversals, and a drying-up tech landscape.
"Companies also have less commitment to people too, right?" Aronson said. "I mean, we just saw all those huge tech layoffs. Companies are not committed to people in the same way that they were."
Instead, many Gen Z-ers are putting an emphasis on longevity outside of the workplace, even as they quit in record numbers. Look at the workers making life their full time jobs.
Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh previously told Insider that he thinks we're seeing some workplaces adjust and stop workers from "shopping for jobs." He pointed to still-low layoff rates as companies learning their lesson from letting so many people go in 2020 and then struggling to get them back. "Ultimately, what we'd like to see is sustainability in the job place," he told Insider.
Gen Z isn't quite feeling that yet, though. For many, quitting for a better-paying job, or one with better benefits or better hours, has been a response to an economy where increasing student debt costs and inflation have put a strain on their finances. When working a full-time minimum wage job isn't enough to afford housing in most parts of the country, it shouldn't be surprising that young adults are quitting over low pay, or little opportunity for advancement.
"When we're young, we're given this promise: Hey, if you work hard and you go to college, you give it your all, you're going to get your all back," Jasmine said.
"That's a lie," she said. "We've given it our all and we're not getting anything back unless we know someone or unless you have money."