Employees Will Start Quitting Now That The Economy Is Improving
Being out of work is frustrating enough, but even those with a job are getting fed up! Pay cuts, reduced benefits and extra workloads are finally pushing a lot of disgruntled workers right out the door. A study from CareerBuilder.com finds that 24% of workers no longer feel loyal to their current employer, and 19% plan to move to a new job this year.
Rusty Rueff is a career and workplace expert at GlassDoor.com, which offers an inside look at more than 70,000 companies – including salary details and company reviews. He says that since the recession took hold two years ago, the threat of the unemployment line has been the only thing keeping workers at their current jobs. Now, with the economy improving, people are likely to start quitting in droves. According to Rueff, morale is essentially in the toilet, and if employers don’t communicate what employees can expect going forward - in terms of reinstating salaries and benefits – it’s going to cause a lot more friction.
Michael Erwin, senior career adviser at Career Builder, agrees. He says that workers feel like they took the brunt of the recession, because companies had to do whatever they could to cut costs - including programs that directly impacted employees. He says now is the time for employers to start focusing worker retention, rather than cost cutting. He also warns that employees need to think twice about jumping ship without a back-up plan, because the job hunt is going to be even more competitive than it was last year.
As a worker, your best bet is to update your resume and start reaching out to all your contacts. Quitting on the spot as a form of protest is NOT a good idea. You’re likely to get lost in a sea of job seekers competing for few openings. Plus, if you wait a little longer, you just might see things start to improve within your current company.
