The Great Resignation Never Really Ended
July 21, 2026 · Frisian News
Workers quit at elevated rates despite claims the Great Resignation has ended. The labor market has not returned to 2019 levels.
The US quit rate in June 2026 remains above its pre-2021 levels. Millions of workers are still leaving their jobs each month. Recent Labor Department numbers have led some to declare the Great Resignation finally finished. The data says otherwise.
Start of 2022, the resignation rate stopped climbing and journalists packed up their story. Employers celebrated, pointing to new work-from-home policies and signing bonuses they had finally started offering. What actually happened: the job market tightened, not the worker discontent. Wage growth lagged inflation. Workers stopped leaving not because they felt valued, but because the next opportunity looked just as bad.
Between 2024 and now, the shape of the exodus changed. Older workers began retiring years ahead of schedule rather than accept layoffs in their 50s. Younger workers cycled jobs faster, moving to escape both stagnant pay and the return-to-office mandates. Many job changers cited "poor compensation" or "lack of respect" as their reason. The resignations never stopped. They just became harder to name as a unified trend.
Tech companies hired back thousands of workers in 2025, but at lower salaries than those same roles commanded in 2021. Healthcare systems report critical nursing shortages. Manufacturing has seen rising retirements in supervisory roles and steady quits among line workers. What connects them: employers responded to the resignation wave not with better pay or working conditions, but with wage freezes, speedups, and tighter control.
The Great Resignation did not end. Workers stopped waiting for the market to improve and made their own choices instead. Some left the workforce early. Some took lower pay at smaller employers. Some job-hopped every two years to capture raises. The labor market of 2026 is not the labor market of 2019. Employers can spin the narrative. The numbers show the truth.
Published July 21, 2026 · Frisian News