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Introduction
The Great Resignation, also known as the Big Quit or the Great Attrition, captures the higher-than-normal quit rate among American workers since 2021 (Cook, 2021). This trend was first noticed in the spring of 2021 and continued to grow in the second half of the year, shortly after the economy moved toward recovery from COVID-19 and a climbing number of jobs were made available. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that nearly 33 million people had left their jobs since April 2021 – equal to more than one-fifth of the national workforce (Zagorsky, 2022).
The Great Resignation has not touched all sectors equally; the hospitality industry remains the hardest hit. A recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report (US Bureau of Labor, 2022a) revealed that the accommodation and food services sector weathered the highest quit rate – 6.0% – in January 2022. This rate was followed by 4.6% in retail trade and 3.4% in arts, entertainment and recreation, all of which belong to the hospitality and tourism industry. By contrast, most other sectors’ quit rates were below the national average of 2.8%. Hospitality and tourism work is relatively labor-intensive and low-wage. Staffing shortages have thus presented a problem, with attrition rates higher than 5% on many occasions since 2000 (Zagorsky, 2022). Yet, compared with prepandemic data, the quit rate in accommodation and food services jumped from 4.1% in February 2020 to a record high of 6.4% in November 2021, reflecting the steepest increase across all service sectors (US Bureau of Labor, 2022b).
Research on the Great Resignation has also shown that resignation rates differ by generation and gender. Generation Z has spearheaded this movement (Gerber, 2021): in a global survey, 59% of Gen Z respondents expressed dissatisfaction with their current jobs, and more than 50% indicated that they planned to switch jobs within the next year. ADP Research Institute’s Workforce Vitality Report also identified a high turnover rate of 10% in the 16–24 age group in contrast to the national average of 5.1% (Zagorsky, 2022). Mid-career employees are another major force behind the Great Resignation (Cook, 2021). Through an analysis of more than 9 million employee records from more than 4,000 companies, Cook (2021) discovered that the resignation rate of employees between 30 and...