Why do people leave the workforce

Company reviews. Find salaries. Upload your resume. Sign in. Career Development. Why it's important to know the reasons employees leave.

Common reasons employees leave their job. Needing more of a challenge. Looking for a higher salary. Feeling uninspired. Wanting to feel valued. Seeking a better management relationship. Searching for job growth and career advancement. Needing more feedback or structure. Wanting a different work environment. Looking to live somewhere else.

Feeling conflicted with workplace policies. Thinking that their job has changed. Wanting a clearer company vision. Needing a better work-life balance. Seeking a more financially secure company.

Wanting more independence. It was a job and a field she loved. People like Villareal are leaving their jobs — or thinking about it — in droves. In the US alone, April saw more than four million people quit their jobs , according to a summary from the Department of Labor — the biggest spike on record.

But for many, many others, the decision to leave came as a result of the way their employer treated them during the pandemic. That was the case for Villareal, who found herself back in the classroom after only a short closure. In the US, private schools, governed by different rules, were able to return to in-person learning much sooner than public schools.

Villareal was uncomfortable about her safety, and saw her stress and workload spike when she was juggling both in-person and remote learners concurrently. The pandemic ripped that veil from my eyes. Workers are opting to leave unsupportive employers and transition to jobs in which they feel like they have better resources and are more cared for Credit: Getty Images. Don't expect the rate to rise anytime soon, say researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland in a recent paper.

They're expecting further declines over the next decade or so. The youngest baby boomers are still in their early 50s, the researchers say, so boomers will be dropping out of the job market for years to come. On the plus side, the researchers said, those job openings created by retiring baby boomers could open up more opportunities for younger adults and less-educated workers.

So what's the long-term impact of a falling participation rate? The economy needs the labor pool to start growing again, says Doug Handler, chief U. The weak labor market cannot support many more months in which jobs grow by , or more.

Funk at Express Employment Professionals says the drop in the labor force is masking how high unemployment actually is. In August, some , workers quit accommodation and food services jobs and , quit retail positions, according to BLS data. The healthcare sector also took a hit: , U. In both June and July, the rate of voluntary quits was 2. In August, the turnover rate was 2. Those numbers mark unprecedented churn: the 4. When a current employer is unable or unwilling to make a job more attractive, numbers on job openings suggest that burned out workers in many sectors can easily find new ones.

Frustrated by limited senior staff and insufficient training at her medical lab assistant job, she felt overwhelmed and overworked at the hospital she started working at in May