More Americans Are Quitting Their Jobs The national quit rate, which measures how many American workers voluntarily leave their jobs, is at its highest level since 2009. And thats a good sign, indicating an increase in available positions. Because when jobs are scarce and people are worried about finding work, they are less willing to abandon a paying job. The quit rate is a useful measure of how much confidence workers feel and how many opportunities they have to switch to a more attractive job, Steven Davis, a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Davis noted that some might call the rate the take this job and shove it index. In the years before the recession, the monthly quit rate among non-farm workers was consistently above 2 percent. It peaked at 2.9 percent in 2001 (the rate was first calculated in 2000) and stood at 2.5 percent in 2006. During the recession, it dropped to a 10-year-low of 1.3 percent, according to The Fiscal Times, and it remained low for several years even after the recession officially ended. But in the past two years, the monthly quit rate has been rising, hitting 1.8 percent in February of this year. Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen said at a conference in August: More workers voluntarily quit their jobs when they are more confident about their ability to find new ones and when firms are competing more actively for new hires. Indeed, the quit rate has picked up with improvements in the labor market over the past year, but it still remains somewhat depressed relative to its level before the recession. According to the most recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the quit rate remained at 1.8 percent in June, when 2.53 million workers quit their jobs. The highest rate was for workers in accommodation and food services, 4 percent, and leisure and hospitality, 3.8 percent. The lowest rates were for government workers, including federal, state, and local — just 0.6 percent — and manufacturing employees, 0.9 percent. The rate also differed by region. It was highest in the South (2.3 percent) and lowest in the Northeast (1.2 percent).
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 14:43:29 +0000
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