Does it feel like there are an unusual number of going-away parties and cleaned-out desks at your place of employment? It's no illusion — more people are saying "I quit!" than at any time since the good old pre-recession days.

The Society for Human Resource Management took a gander at the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers for the "quit rate" — those who depart under their own steam. What SHRM found was that the number has been high, and it's getting higher. March's total of 2.8 million folks who submitted their letters of resignation was up by 100,000 over February's total and marked the highest quit rate in seven years.

"When the quits rate goes up HR can assume they will need to be prepared for increased voluntary turnover rates because it is a sign that workers are more confident about leaving their jobs and finding new positions," said Jennifer Schramm, SHRM-SCP, manager of workforce trends at SHRM.

Continue Reading for Free

Register and gain access to:

  • Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.

Dan Cook

Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.