Maeve Higgins: Pandemic gave millions of US workers a new outlook on life

Some combination of pandemic burn-out, better opportunities, remote work, and a cushion provided by stimulus cheques and unemployment benefits have contributed to this massive, chaotic churn in the labour market

In the US in September, a record number of 4.4m workers quitting their jobs voluntarily in September, almost 3% of the working population. Picture: iStock/PA. 

Imagine the entire population of Croatia walking off the job in the space of a month — millions of people quitting their jobs, practically all at once.

That’s close to what happened here in the US in September, where the Labor Department reported a record number of 4.4m workers quitting their jobs voluntarily in September. That is almost 3% of the working population and the highest number of people quitting since the department began tracking that number 20 years ago.