Why over 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in March

By Seth Emmanuel

Some more that 4 million Americans handed in their resignation letters in each of the last ten months, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, with the month of March the highest such numbers have occurred.

The represents a 3 percent of the American workforce – a trend that kicked off nearly a year ago in April, when 4 million people said “I’m done,”

Surprisingly, job openings are also at a record high, with 11.5 million vacancies presently available with businesses also hiring at a steady clip. An estimated 6.7 million workers hired in March alone.

“All told, it shows the current state of labor market reshuffling that’s been happening for nearly a year: Workers seem to know that they can quit and get hired elsewhere — and that’s exactly what they’re doing,” reported the INSIDER.

Workers began to “rage-quit” last summer over how they were treated and paid. Labor shortages began to crop up in low-paying industries like leisure and hospitality, where wages skyrocketed.

The data from BLS shows a continuing trend of robust hiring and quits, suggesting that workers are job switching rather than exiting the labor force entirely, and they’re often getting better pay in their new gigs.

In fact, INSIDER reports that, a survey from Pew Research Center found that over half of Americans who quit in 2021 and are employed are making more money than they did in their old role.

New research from Glassdoor shows that job seekers’ expectations for pay in their new role has increased by 43 percent in the last year.