In the 'Great Resignation,' Older Workers Lead the Way
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Here's your Money Briefing for Friday, November 5th. I'm J.R. Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. Have you heard of the Great Resignation? That's the name given to the record number of people who voluntarily left their jobs during the pandemic. Many have quit in search of better pay, but others, like older Americans with decades of experience, saw an opportunity to move up their retirement date. And that's thrown a wrench into the labor market.
In 2019 going into 2020, right before the pandemic, the economy had actually been doing quite well. And what we actually saw was some older Americans coming off the sidelines. They were kind of lured back into work. We weren't expecting to see sort of this pickup in retirements right as we headed into the pandemic.
Coming up, our economics reporter Amara Amokwe will join us to discuss how early retirement among older Americans is affecting the workforce. And we'll hear from one Minneapolis area resident and why he decided to retire early. That's after the break.
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What is the Great Resignation and why are older Americans leaving work?
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We've seen the unemployment rate improve dramatically since the height of the pandemic. Many workers have either returned to their original jobs or found something new. But when it comes to older Americans compared to their younger counterparts, far fewer of them have returned to the workforce. WSJ economics reporter Amara Amokwe wrote about how that's affecting the jobs market, and she's here to talk about it. Amara, thank you for being with us.
Thanks for having me.
So, Amara, data from the Federal Reserve shows that an additional 1.5 million people retired from February 2020 to April of this year than would have if the retirement trend we saw in 2019 had continued. I want to first talk about what's driving that ramp up in retirement. What is it about returning to work that's unappealing to so many older workers?
Well, the workers I talked to for this story and the economists I've spoken with about this trend say that there are several reasons for what we're seeing with retirements during the pandemic. So for some older workers, it was the fear of coronavirus. As we know, older people are more at risk from serious illness or death from COVID-19. And one of the workers I spoke with had pre-existing health conditions. And he said, look, I was just really afraid that if I caught coronavirus, I could die from it. And so he retired from his job and that triggered a lot of financial issues for him and his family. But for him, when he weighed the potential health risks, it just made more sense to retire. Other older Americans I spoke with said the pandemic just kind of changed their priorities and their desires.
I spoke to a woman who was a literacy coach for a school system in South Carolina, and she said she was just kind of tired, kind of burnt out over the pandemic. She didn't want to have to do her job during this upcoming school year. And so she just she kind of retired when she thought she might work for another two years or so.
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