Firm Management
Great Resignation Regrets? There Have Been a Few
One in four (26%) U.S. workers who quit their last job say they regret it, a new survey revealed.
Sep. 02, 2022
Some of the 47.4 million Americans who voluntarily quit their jobs last year have questioned their decision, according to a new poll by job-search portal Joblist.
One in four (26%) of the 628 survey respondents who quit their previous job say they regret doing so. Of those who found a new job after quitting, 42% say their new job has not lived up to their expectations.
The No. 1 regret people gave for packing up their cubicles is leaving without a new job lined up and finding a new job harder than expected.
If their new job does not meet their expectations, the survey found that employees will try to move on quickly. Joblist says:
16% say they will stay less than three months when a job does not live up to expectations, 34% will stay less than six months, and 48% will stay less than a year.
Interestingly, our survey finds that younger workers are much more likely to leave an underwhelming job quickly than older workers. For example, 47% of people in their twenties and 40% of workers in their thirties say that they will leave a job in less than six months if it doesn’t live up to their expectations. By contrast, less than 25% of workers who are over 40 will leave in less than six months. Although quitting is common across all age groups, older workers are much more likely to endure a longer tenure at a disappointing new job.
When asked if they would consider going back to their old job as a “boomerang employee,” respondents were split. The majority (59%) said “no,” while 17% said “yes” and 24% were “maybe” open to it, according to Joblist.
Professional staff turnover was 18.7% over the past year at the top 100 largest public accounting firms by revenue (excluding the Big Four), according to INSIDE Public Accounting, with more than one in three firms averaging more than 20% professional staff turnover.