In 2022, at the height of the “great resignation,” a record 4.5 million workers each month — about 3% of the U.S. workforce — were quitting their jobs. While some economists have said this pandemic-era trend is over, new research from Microsoft and LinkedIn forecasts that even more people plan to leave their jobs in 2024. Nearly half (46%) of professionals say they’re considering quitting in the year ahead — higher than the 40% who said the same ahead of 2021s great resignation, according to new research from Microsoft and LinkedIn, which surveyed more than 30,000 people in 31 countries between February and March 2024.

In the U.S., LinkedIn has seen a 14% increase in job applications per opening since last fall, with 85% of workers saying they plan to look for a new role in 2024, a survey of 1,013 U.S. professionals conducted between November and December 2023 found. And Americans’ confidence in their job-hunting prospects has reached its highest point in two years, a February 2024 ZipRecruiter survey of more than 2,000 jobseekers shows. This renewed sense of optimism is aided by the fact that the U.S. economy avoided the recession forecast for 2023, ZipRecruiter chief economist Julia Pollak tells CNBC Make It. […]

It’s not just better labor market conditions driving more U.S. workers to consider a career change in 2024. Inflation is still squeezing Americans’ budgets; nearly half (45%) of workers planning to switch jobs this year say they need a higher income, according to Monster’s 2024 Work Watch Report. Job switchers tend to increase their salaries more quickly than those who stay put, per data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Changing jobs is coming with greater pay gains: New data from ADP shows the median year-over-year pay increase for job switchers was 10% in March, up from 2.9% six months prior. With salaries finally keeping up with inflation, Pollak adds, the return on investment of switching jobs feels “much higher” than it did six months ago.