- [Emma] Here's a bird's eye view of the monumental shifts happening across the American workforce right now. The lines above zero show the sectors that saw the strongest job growth, since right before the pandemic. While the lines below show the ones that have seen the biggest declines. It's evidence of a larger phenomenon that is touching almost every industry. - Business is closing their doors, employees working crazy hours. It's all because of the
so-called Great Resignation. - [Emma] In August, more than 4 million
workers quit their jobs, a record 20-year high. - A lot of people are
taking time to reevaluate what they want to do with their lives and what work actually means to them. - [Emma] For millions of
workers and businesses, the Great Resignation is a period that could define the
future of American labor. This is how we got to this point and what we know about
where the workers are going. The first thing to know is that this chart is showing just a slice of the labor force between February, 2020
and September, 2021, from the Labor Department's
September jobs report. There are hundreds of other industries that have seen growth and declines during this period as well. Some that didn't have data
available for September. But what the numbers suggest is clear, thousands of workers lost
their jobs in certain sectors, and many aren't returning. Let's go back to spring 2020
when the pandemic took hold. - Weekly unemployment claims
had a stunning new high today with 6.6 million Americans
filing just last week. - [Emma] As the pandemic spread, businesses shuttered their
doors and tens of millions of people lost their jobs. To help workers and
businesses stay afloat, the federal government began
handing out relief payments. And if we look widely at the labor data, it's clear that certain
industries lost more workers and had a harder time gaining
them back than others. Employment in motion picture and sound recording
industries is still 23% lower than it was in February, 2020. And other sectors hit hardest by the pandemic have been
travel and hospitality. It's clear if you look at this line, employment and travel arrangement
and reservation services is still almost 25% below
February, 2020 levels. The biggest decline among job
sectors in September data. - The weaker job growth in travel related sectors
is probably a reflection of both companies
inability to find workers but also weaker demand for
travel related services, especially as the pandemic
continued during the summer. - [Emma] Sarah Chaney
Cambon has been reporting on the Great Resignation
and American labor shortage for the Wall Street Journal. She pointed out that transit and ground passenger transportation jobs also saw a huge hit, losing over 18%. One part of this sector that has been impacted
heavily is ride sharing, which has experienced a
nationwide shortage of drivers. And while some have slowly returned as government relief has ended, many of these workers are
staying off the roads. For workers with demanding,
lower paying jobs, the pandemic relief payments may have made them less
motivated to return. And another concern weighing heavily on many has been the
risk of getting COVID. Between mid June and early October, the number of people who
said they couldn't work because they were sick
with or caring for someone with COVID rose by 2 million. Also during this time, some older workers chose to
reassess their priorities. The Federal Reserve
Bank of Dallas estimates that 2 1/2 million people
retired during the pandemic, about twice as many as in 2019. And that approximately 1.5
million of these workers would not have retired if the
pandemic had not happened. - So a lot of baby
boomers have retired early during the pandemic in part
because of concerns about COVID. Others have seen, really, big
gains from the stock market or housing prices going up a ton and so they're in a comfortable
financial situation. - [Emma] But many of the workers who are leaving jobs aren't
leaving the workforce entirely. - A lot of people are quitting their jobs, maybe because they've experienced burnout during the pandemic,
or they're just looking for different opportunities. - [Emma] And an increasing number of these workers are switching jobs. - If you're seeing workers
switch from one industry to another it's oftentimes
because they can get better pay or better working
conditions in the industry that they're transitioning to. - [Emma] Some employers
are offering higher wages and healthcare benefits to
try and attract new workers. And the US economy added
about 3 million jobs from April through September this year. Though, employment was
still down over 3% compared with the month before the pandemic hit. Still, many of these workers
have started jobs in industries that have benefited from
pandemic driven shifts. - E-commerce is really taken off and that's created a lot
of jobs at warehouses, at manufacturers and shipping
and postal companies. And we see that very
clearly in the job data. - [Emma] Couriers and messenger jobs saw more than an 18% increase, the largest of any sector
in the September data. While the warehousing
and storage field saw over an 11% rise. - Some industries were doing really well before the pandemic started and the pandemic only helps them, anything related to science and research and development was
growing pretty strongly before the pandemic started and then, after you
had demand for vaccines and so that definitely
creates a lot of jobs. - [Emma] You can see it here. Scientific research and
development service jobs grew by almost 10%. COVID cases have declined since
the September jobs report. And some economists are optimistic that more workers will return this fall. Still, others are concerned that labor shortages reflect
longer-term shifts away from the workforce that won't reverse. Meaning, some of these
industries could be faced with long lasting changes.
