Why Great resignation Matters
Periods of high quits can increase vacancies and bargaining power, expose poor-quality work, and intensify competition for some skills. Aggregate quit figures do not reveal whether an organisation has a pay problem, an occupation shortage, seasonal churn, internal movement, retirement, or a specific management issue.
Terms Recruiters Commonly Compare
Turnover
Turnover counts departures under an organisation’s defined method and can include voluntary and involuntary exits. The Great Resignation refers to an exceptional period of voluntary quitting in parts of the wider labour market.
Labour-force exit
A labour-force exit means a person is no longer employed or actively seeking work under the relevant statistical definition. Many Great Resignation quitters changed employers and remained in the labour force.
Recruitment Example
A hospitality group attributes rising resignations to a national trend. Site-level analysis shows that most departures occur on late shifts with unpredictable scheduling and limited transport. The employer stabilises rosters, adjusts the shift premium, and gives candidates exact hours; retention improves without a generic campaign about purpose.
Implementation Playbook
- Define the period, geography, sector, occupation, and comparison baseline before using the label.
- Separate voluntary quits from dismissals, contract completions, retirements, internal transfers, and data-quality changes.
- Combine labour-market flows with exit evidence, stay interviews, pay, scheduling, workload, management, absence, and vacancy data.
- Segment results carefully so a stable average does not hide a problem in one site, shift, tenure group, or occupation.
- Update vacancy information and recruiter briefings when verified reasons for leaving reveal a mismatch with the advertised role.
- Test retention actions against current outcomes instead of assuming pandemic-era preferences remain unchanged.
Common Mistakes
- Claiming the Great Resignation affected every country and occupation in the same way.
- Equating a job-to-job move with permanent withdrawal from the labour force.
- Explaining all resignations through one preference such as remote work.
- Using the trend as an excuse for avoidable local management, pay, safety, or scheduling problems.
Metrics to Track
Questions Recruiters Ask
When was the Great Resignation?
The phrase is most closely associated with the surge in voluntary quits during 2021 and 2022, particularly in United States data. Timing and strength varied elsewhere.
Why did people resign?
There was no single reason. Labour demand, pay opportunities, health and safety, care, retirement, workload, schedules, management, career reassessment, and work location affected different groups in different ways.
Is the Great Resignation still happening?
The answer depends on the present country, industry, occupation, and baseline. Use current official labour data and organisational evidence rather than treating a pandemic-era label as a permanent condition.
Sources and Review
ATZ CRM Recruitment Editorial Review · Reviewed 2026-08-05
Put Great resignation Into Practice with ATZ CRM
Use ATZ CRM to convert glossary concepts into daily recruiter workflows with sourcing pipelines, automation, scorecards, and reporting built for staffing and recruitment teams.