The phenomenon of rage-quitting is as old as work itself. Some people prefer to end things with a bang, not a whimper. So things like bridge-burning, walking off sans a two weeks' notice, or even making a scene are nothing new when leaving a workplace. But the American workforce seems to be primed for rage-quitting at the moment — especially hourly workers in low-wage occupations like retail, which make up a giant portion of the workforce. In fact, hourly workers made up 58.1% of the US workforce in 2019, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Recently, multiple Dollar General employees at a store in Maine
walked off the job after posting notes decrying the company's work culture and pay. Similar
incidents have occurred at
Chipotle,
Hardee's, and
Wendy's locations around the country. At the same time, employers are complaining of a tight labor market, in some cases accusing
unemployment benefits of luring workers away.
But there's also evidence that many hourly wage earners are simply fed up with their jobs. A study from the human-resources assessment platform
Traitify found that one in four respondents were at least "somewhat" less happy with their job than they were a year ago.
Gigs in industries like
retail have long been denounced over low pay and high stress. But will the boiled-over rage of workers fresh off a life-altering pandemic — and any resulting labor shortage — finally prompt a major shift in working conditions?
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