Happy New Year!
I'd like to claim that I'm one of life's intellectuals but I'm afraid my reading material is largely fiction oriented. I use reading as an absolute escape and whilst I enjoy everything from Marian Keyes to Lee Child, I can't claim to match Mr PMP who reads the Economist and New Scientist on a weekly basis (not just skimming either...). Fortunately, Mr PMP does feed me interesting stories and knowing a tiny amount about a number of subjects serves me pretty well. In December though, he sent me a link for an Economist Article - The Great Resignation, All talk and no trousers. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/evidence-for-the-great-resignation-is-thin-on-the-ground/21806659.
Throughout the pandemic, I've come to respect 'the media' less and less. Call me a cynic but trying to identify 'news stories' with a bit of factual content feels increasingly hard. The same 'story' written from a number of different (usually politically charged) angles depending upon which newspaper or website you are reading can lead to very different conclusions and opinions being made. And of course once these stories are then circulated on social channels and platforms we see an increased number of individuals vociferously getting stuck into debates and subsequently we see what is essentially Chinese whispers going into overdrive whereupon any actual facts from the outset are long twisted and forgotten.
Again, during the pandemic, the 'media' has had a field day with various 'stories' and themes. The jobs market has been a particularly popular subject and we've seen articles in the early days go from doom and gloom with recession and unemployment rates being sky high (never actually materialised...the latter), the end of the office (not going to happen), and most recently, job vacancies being at the highest level ever with several UK businesses experiencing their best revenue ever (actually true, or at least in the creative sector).
It is true that at the start of the pandemic, there were 3 months of uncertainty. The world of recruitment stood still as businesses quickly adapted to their changing circumstances. In the world of marketing, advertising, media and digital agencies, employers waited to see how their clients would respond and in the short term, we saw a huge number of individuals furloughed. But come July 2020 we were seeing the number of vacancies rise again and since then they have continued to rise. In the creative and advertising agency sector, businesses are crying out for new employees. There has been a staggered return to the jobs market for candidates based on their confidence to move employer during a pandemic, which in turn depends on their own personal situation - the junior end of the market and the £20-30k bracket returned to job hunting more readily than the 'working parents' - circa £40-70k who are primarily concerned with job security anyway but who were also busy home-schooling and didn't have time to look for a new job. I've certainly not seen any evidence (in our sector) of The Great Resignation. And another of my beefs with journalism is that it's all about extremes rather than trying to find the truth which is usually somewhere in the middle - but I guess that doesn't sell newspapers. Every year, pandemic or not, there is a percentage of individuals who leave the sector but that's a natural attrition and I've not seen a major upswing in the last 2 years.
What I have seen, is a huge number of individuals taking stock of their work life balance. The new hybrid models of working look set to stay and in our sector this is typically looking like 2-3 office days per week with some agencies offering greater/lesser flexibility. Again the younger demographic are happy to be office based far more than the older demographic but it varies according to lifestyle. Office hours are much more flexible moving forwards and I think employers have responded to the new demands for flexibility very positively. Such is the difficulty in finding new employees, employers are reminded that it is much easier to retain staff than it is to find and train new ones at high cost. There is a greater emphasis on looking out for one's colleagues ('are you ok?') and mental health is at the forefront of the HR agenda pretty much everywhere.
The caveat obviously is that in different sectors there may be different statistics But it's not always reflected in news stories. I read earlier this week that 'staff are leaving the NHS in droves' but then read another article directly contradicting this (in the same newspaper). Perhaps if you had been working for years in a role that was unsatisfying and unrewarding, the pandemic may have driven you to learn new skills, go back to college, speed up starting a family - all kinds of things. But a news story is never as straightforward as the headline might suggest.
But that's why I like the Economist. In a world where I struggle to find factual content, I like that they don't have journalist's bylines so I feel more confident that it's a story out to maximise on 'clicks' and generally they do support their words with numbers. It's an interesting article so worth taking some time to read it. I'll remain a skimmer though and hope that Mr PMP continues to send me interesting links.