Nick Colas Tracks 1.9% Quit Rate in Welcome To The Great Hunkering Down
Welcome to the great hunkering down: employees are quitting at the lowest US rate in about a decade. The latest reading puts the US quit rate at 1.9 per cent, down from about 3 per cent in 2021 and below the about 2.3 per cent pre-pandemic level.
Nick Colas of DataTrek Research gave the quit-rate dataset its nickname, “Take This Job and Shove It,” and the latest number fits a broader retreat from the job-hopping mood that peaked in 2021. For workers, that points to fewer easy exits and less leverage in salary talks, especially as the article links the shift to macroeconomic uncertainty and weaker confidence.
Nick Colas and DataTrek
DataTrek Research uses the quit-rate series as a read on how willing employees are to walk away. Colas coined the nickname “Take This Job and Shove It” for that dataset, and the current 1.9 per cent reading shows how far the measure has fallen from its 2021 high.
Jessica Rabe is the other DataTrek analyst named in the piece. The article says the Great Resignation is well and truly over, which means the labour market is no longer delivering the same rapid worker movement that characterised the earlier period.
Perks, Pressure and Remote Work
The article contrasts the current mood with an earlier stretch when some lawyers could bring dogs to the office and some bankers enjoyed “summer Fridays.” One Wall Street analyst described that period four years ago by saying, “Log into Teams, check e-mail, then live my life.”
That flexibility has given way to a tighter market for quitters. The article points to trade wars, real wars, warnings about looming AI-induced job losses, and a weak US housing market as reasons people may feel less able to change jobs.
It also says some workers who switched to remote work during the pandemic and moved to rural areas may now be trapped in those jobs. OECD research in the article links labour reallocation to economic dynamism and productivity growth, while the piece also notes tentative signs that new AI tools are starting to boost US productivity growth.
US and UK Quit Rates
The US is not alone. UK data shows a similar pattern, reinforcing the idea that the drop is not just a one-off reading in one labour market.
For employees, the practical change is straightforward: quitting is less common, and staying put is more likely to be the default. For employers, that means less churn and a labour market that is moving more slowly than it did in 2021.
There is no single policy move in this story to wait for. The important shift is already in the data: the quit-rate surge has faded, and the leverage that came with it has faded with it.
