GETTING A GRIP ON THE FLIP

The top line is good and, in fact, exceeds what most economist thought would happen: Over the last thirty days, the U.S. economy added 850,000 jobs, the largest increase in the last 10 months. What's more, June's job report indicates that, over the last thirty days, employment in restaurants, bars, and hotels jumped by 343,000, and by 67,000 in retail-- the very sectors that got had gotten clocked real good by COVID. And by all accounts, more folk are flying, dropping money at the mall, and grabbing grab at the restaurant. At the risk of possibly killing you're buzz, though, it's important to peer beneath the top line numbers. It is there--beneath the surface-- where one not only detects the persistence of problems but also rumblings warning about premature declarations of victory. We must not gloss over the fact that there's still 9.5 million persons officially classified as unemployed. Or that the number of long-term unemployed-- the official number of jobless folks who've been gig less for at six months-- has increased by 233,000, with the result being 42% of the unemployed have been without a job for at least six months. Or that while the overall unemployment rate held steady at 5.9%, the specific rates for Black men and Black women increased from 9.8% to 10% and 8.2% to 8.5%, respectively. All signs that some groups are "recovering" faster than others, and that those hit hardest by the pandemic are the last to catch a glimpse of daylight.

But there's this other thing that can easily get buried beneath the surface: The number of people raising up and quitting their gigs is growing. More and more workers are flipping the bird. More and more workers are giving their employers that proverbial middle figure and understanding the reasons behind the flip may provide us with important info on what type of economy we should be re-imagining and re-enacting.

FLIPPING THE BIRD

To get a better grip on what this flip is about, we must turn to a different Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) survey, namely, the Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover Survey or what's colloquially known as JOLTS. This survey gathers and disseminates data on job openings, hires, and separations. JOLTS classify you as a "quit" when you voluntarily raise up and bounce from your gig. It's akin to flipping your employer the bird.

According to the most recent JOLTS report, 4 million persons "voluntarily separated" from their jobs or, to use more colorful language, flashed the middle finger at their employers. This translated into a "quit rate"-- quits as a percentage of total employment-- of 2.7%. Both the level of quits (4 mil) and the quit rate (2.7%) are at their highest level since the BLS starting tracking and disseminating in 2000.

And it's telling, I think, when you look at quit rates by industry. Of the 4 million quits, a little more than 700,000 occurred in the Leisure and Hospitality industry, an industry that includes "accommodations and food service" workers. Another 787,000 retail workers flashed the middle finger during the month of April. By the way, the quit rates for "accommodations and food service" workers and "retail workers" are 5.6% and 4.3%, respectively. These rates far exceed that of all other workers and industry classifications. These are some of the very workers who labored on the front-line during the pandemic, at low wages and meager benefits-- all the while having to deal with belligerent customers who insisted that mask mandates was the first step toward fascism.

A CRISIS OF MEANING

I'm still thinking through this quit data. On the one hand, one expects quits to increase in tandem with job openings, and the JOLTS data does suggest that the number of jobs openings increased by almost 100,000 and stood at 9.3 million at the end of April. If you're going to raise up from a gig, it's obviously better to do it when there are more rather than less openings.

On the other hand, I have this gut feeling that the economic calamity and the deaths associated with the pandemic has caused many of us to ponder the meaning of life, what we want to do from here on out, and what goals are worthy of our pursuit. It's hard not to become more reflective about the meaning of life, work, and play when more than 600,000 in just the US alone have died from COVID. Millions of workers, here and elsewhere, have had a close encounter with death. Even if they were fortunate enough not to catch a case of COVID themselves, many know friends, loved ones, and co-workers whose lot was both different and far too often deadly. Burned in the memory is that dystopia where an anti-science and xenophobia mad man was at the helm, and where the country had outsourced so much of its production that we came up short on masks and personal protection equipment when we most needed it. Maybe not for all, but for many folks this is the kind of stuff that lingers and engenders a crisis of meaning.

What I'm suggesting is that some of this flipping of the bird may very well be a sign that lots of folk are reevaluating and searching for a renewed vision of life and its possibilities. That search includes, I think, new and life giving ways in which we organize our social, political, and economic lives.

If I'm right, then it's imperative that we speak to that search, that we find humane ways to respond to the flashing of that finger.

If I'm right, then there's added urgency to stop focusing so much on returning to "normal" and to start devoting even more energy to envisioning and enacting an economy that's predicated upon the scaredness of the person, the holiness of human needs, and the interdependence of ALL of creation.

But, then again, I'm just in the process of getting a grip on the meaning of the flip.

Catch you on the flip side,

Doc Greene