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Study: NC has one of the highest resignation rates in the US

North Carolina has one of the highest quits rates in the country, according to a study released on Friday by WalletHub.

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North Carolina State Capitol building. Photo taken May 22, 2021.
By
Maegan Vazquez & Matt Egan CNN; Maggie Brown
, WRAL multiplatform producer
RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina has one of the highest rates of resignation in the country, according to a study released on Friday by WalletHub.

The most recent data from North Carolina shows that 3.6% of employees quit their jobs in November. That rate is slightly above the national average of 3%.

A record 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in November. While there have been a variety of issues leading to Americans to exit the workforce, early retirement has made a major impact. Nearly 70% of the 5 million people who left the labor force during the pandemic were older than 55, according to researchers from Goldman Sachs, with many not wanting to return to work.

While the country no longer faces the record high unemployment rate seen at the start of the pandemic, there's a labor shortage — leading many workplaces to struggle to keep up with demand.

Employees who work in food service and retail have some quit at the highest rates in the United States, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. Health care and social work also saw a large jump in resignations during the month of November.

Impact of omicron on the economy

People were quitting their jobs at a higher rate in November 2021 than they were in November 2020, during the first year of the pandemic before vaccines were made widely available.

The percentage of the adult population not working because of COVID-related reasons tripled between December and January, according to Goldman Sachs.

The Wall Street bank, citing the latest Household Pulse Survey of roughly 75,000 respondents from the U.S. Census Bureau, said the share of adults not working due to virus-related reasons jumped from 1.2% in December to 3.5% in January.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, pointed out on Twitter that the survey shows a staggering 12 million people were "not working because they were sick with the virus, taking care of someone who was, or were fearful of getting sick."

The survey, done in the first 10 days of January, is "more evidence of the economic damage omicron is doing," Zandi said.

Everything from garbage collection and emergency services to airlines has been interrupted by omicron.

"Employers with public-facing workers, like schools and emergency service providers, appear to have had particularly large shares of their labor force isolate due to the virus," Goldman Sachs economists wrote in the report.

The South has a higher percentage of workers quitting their jobs compared to any another region in America, federal data shows.
States in the Northeast have significantly lower resignation rates, Wallet Hub’s study shows. New York has the lowest rate of employees quitting their jobs at just 1.83% over the past 12 months.

"Activity in virus-sensitive services has declined sharply over the last month," Goldman Sachs said.

For instance, air travel has slowed down. The number of passengers processed at airports by the Transportation Security Administration has dropped to about 72% of the level of two years ago, compared with 84% in November, according to Goldman Sachs.

Both American Airlines and United Airlines warned this week of reduced demand due to omicron.

"While omicron is impacting near term demand, we remain optimistic about the spring and excited about the summer and beyond," said United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said.

OpenTable's tracking of seated diners at restaurants has declined by a similar margin, Goldman Sachs said.

Alaska had the highest quit rate in the country in November at 5.2%, according to WalletHub's study.

Biden administration takes new steps to address job quality amid record-setting resignations

Labor Secretary Marty Walsh is announcing a new federal roadmap to improve job quality and job access on Friday, as Americans continue to leave the workforce in record numbers.

The program, called the Good Jobs Initiative, will be unveiled by Walsh at the US Conference of Mayors winter meeting in Washington. The initiative, led by the Labor Department, will establish a broad framework across the federal government to inform workers of their rights -- including their right to collectively bargain, engage employers in improving jobs to retain workers and deploy federal agencies to bolster the plan.

"We are going to work across federal agencies to build job quality into all our contracting and grant making. Not just minimum wages -- but prevailing wages, paid leave, apprenticeship opportunities, and more," Walsh will say, according to a preview of his speech. "We're also going to engage employers -- to help them improve job quality -- so every industry can attract and retain the talent it needs. We're going to speak directly to workers -- making sure they have the information they need to exercise their rights, find good jobs, and get in-demand skills."

The genesis of the initiative, Walsh said, was the sweeping bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was signed into law last fall. A priority of the initiative will be to support the implementation of the bipartisan infrastructure law, providing guidance on jobs created through infrastructure investments, according to the Labor Department.

"We want to ensure that while implementing the bipartisan infrastructure law, the jobs that are created are high-paying, good quality jobs, and make sure people have access," he said.

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