Andy Kessler of the Wall Street Journal asks, “Where did everyone go? This in an economy with 11.2 million job openings. It’s mostly men 25 to 54 who haven’t come back to work. Now a McKinsey study suggests that 40% of workers are thinking of quitting their jobs. Does anyone want to work anymore?” How come? Kessler has a guess: “Too many got a taste of not working and liked it. A lot.”
Does the Great Resignation propose a new model—an idea of work, and even of America itself, that dissents from the classic idea of work? Are we on the threshold of a post-work America, some hybrid of Polynesian indolence and Hayek’s serfdom? Or is what we see, rather, merely one of the many readjustments that the pandemic has brought upon us?
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Andy Kessler of the Wall Street Journal asks, “Where did everyone go? This in an economy with 11.2 million job openings. It’s mostly men 25 to 54 who haven’t come back to work. Now a McKinsey study suggests that 40% of workers are thinking of quitting their jobs. Does anyone want to work anymore?” How come? Kessler has a guess: “Too many got a taste of not working and liked it. A lot.”
>
Does the Great Resignation propose a new model—an idea of work, and even of America itself, that dissents from the classic idea of work? Are we on the threshold of a post-work America, some hybrid of Polynesian indolence and Hayek’s serfdom? Or is what we see, rather, merely one of the many readjustments that the pandemic has brought upon us?
(post is archived)