The Great Resignation? Really?
[Translation : EPALE France]
It comes up in every single news report! Every weekly magazine publishes an article on the subject! We hear so many reports from people who “prefer not to work rather than to suffer at work”. Is it just an editorial trend to keep readers busy over the summer? Or a disruptive media stunt to add to the current thrill of uncertainty? A way of highlighting the palpable anxieties of societies that doubt their ability to manage all these transformations: the aftermath of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, international threats, the impact of global warming on our lives, inflation impacting everyone's daily lives. On closer inspection, global convergence is of course doubtful: indeed, what do North American workers filming their resignations and posting them on social networks have in common with young engineers who, upon graduation, choose to change careers rather than pursue a professional activity that accentuates climate impacts and amplifies social injustices? However, the large number of signs pointing in this direction raises questions.
A sign: recruitment difficulties
At the same time, all professional sectors are having increasing difficulty recruiting. The latest survey on labour force needs published by Pôle Emploi in April 2022[1] confirms that recruitment prospects in France will increase significantly (+12%) but also that the probability that these recruitments will be difficult is also very high (58% of companies think so). Paradoxically, a certain number of economic activities that are essential to growth (and its consequences) are having more difficulty finding employees. Of course, all these statements and data should be taken with caution. In a very recent publication, the Directorate for Research, Studies and Statistics (DARES) stated “At present, the number of resignations is high, though neither unprecedented nor unexpected, given the economic context. This reflects the dynamic nature of the labour market and a situation in which bargaining power is shifting in favour of employees.”
However, this raises some questions: What are the common denominators of these phenomena and what do they tell us about people's relationship to the future, to work and to their careers? What are the noticeable developments and both immediate and longer-term consequences of this phenomenon? How can public employment and training policies take account of these developments from an inclusion perspective?
What are these transformations?
An opinion from the French Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) on high-tension professions in January 2002 stated in its preamble: “The pandemic has given rise to new factors that increase tensions in the labour market. The search for meaning and purpose at work, the aspiration of many working men and women for a more satisfactory balance between their personal and family life and their associative commitments, which were already active before the health crisis.”
Thus, as if echoing these words, the question of the meaning of work, symbolised by the controversial book by the late David Graeber and what he calls bullshit jobs, is no longer a question only for the well-off who have the luxury of questioning the work they do. It affects all generations, all social and cultural levels. Provocatively, he refers to certain workers who dedicate their lives to useless and pointless tasks, while being fully aware of the superficiality of their contribution to society. We can debate this generalisation, this radical position, but the common denominator seems to be the role of work, the way in which each individual sees it, its content, the living conditions associated with it, but also, and this appears more strongly today, how it contributes to society (and not only how it allows for personal success and self-fulfilment). Here again, caution is necessary. The current unpredictability can upset this state of affairs very quickly, particularly in situations of great insecurity. But the same trend is emerging across Europe.
The great resignation: a gradual process of “desertion”?
Recruitment difficulties are not the only sign. For several months now, many training and employment support schemes have been struggling to reach the public. And yet, the offers are numerous, of good quality and often relevant in terms of facilitating access to employment. So something else is going on. This “desertion” is neither linked to the resources mobilised nor to the quality and relevance of the offer. All these elements affect the general public. For professionals, it requires a clear understanding of the situation as circumstantial and recent, but also to integrate it into a much longer standing and progressive process of disaffiliation, a loss of trust leading to a failure to apply the law. For several years, there have been numerous initiatives, particularly in the specific schemes initiated throughout France as part of the skills investment programme. But this covers inclusion issues that cannot be reduced to employment and training aspects alone.
Rebalancing the power relationship? Entering into new transactions
The situation of employment tension also modifies power relationships. Historically, access to many schemes has occurred through a selection process where the criteria were set by the structures themselves. This selectivity, to a greater or lesser extent, generated practices and readings of the situation in which the responsibility for conviction and argumentation lay with the public, who had to be convincing (and were sometimes helped to do so) to be given a chance. Today, bargaining power is shifting in favour of employees, as the DARES publication indicates. This also implies that professionals and structures must reach out to the public, to better understand their needs, their desires and their uses. In short, to re-establish a transaction in which there is a renewed balance of power and where prerequisites and requirements are no longer the only filter.
A question of approach?
However, creating new spaces for transactions, given the changing and unpredictable market, is probably not simply a matter of promoting branches that are looking for professionals, nor is it a matter of transforming the profession of advisor into a social influencer who seeks to capture the public and “lure them into their nets”. When we look at it this way, the strategy is unlikely to be effective. But it also implies that we stop considering that the only lever for action is “developing the attractiveness of high-tension occupations”, a very derisory lever when we look at the sheer volume of work on the construction of professional representations and the low impact of adequation practices over the last few decades.
Entering into this new transaction undoubtedly means shifting the focus on a number of points and conditions:
- Considering the individual as a resource holder (and not just ‘filtered’ through non-negotiable requirements)
- The importance of choosing new places and spaces for this mediation: it is a question of finding a favourable environment where the power relationship is rebalanced.
- Rethinking work as an ongoing experience of skill development, which presupposes agreement on the quality of the work environment (human, pedagogical, material) and on the possibilities for each individual to contribute.
- Mobilising all the players in complex territorial ecosystems where the priorities of some are sometimes opposed to those of others.
These interdependent factors can no longer be ignored. It is not a question of endlessly activating the same levers by doing more of the same thing: more forced training; more measures focused on jobs in short supply; more social pressure on jobseekers; more obligation of results for support and training professionals! We risk amplifying the current ruptures in doing so.
We need to collectively re-establish a bond of trust that does not add control, but on the contrary reintroduces debate and controversy in order to listen to what each person has to say, how they feel, in their own space. Only then will it be possible to make fruitful collective decisions. There are many experiences in France and Europe that can provide inspiration. We will come back to this in the next blog post.
André Chauvet
https://dares.travail-emploi.gouv.fr/publication/la-france-vit-elle-une-grande-demission
https://statistiques.pole-emploi.org/bmo
https://www.lecese.fr/sites/default/files/pdf/Avis/2022/2022-01_metiers_tension.pdf
http://www.editionslesliensquiliberent.fr/livre-Bullshit_Jobs-578-1-1-0-1.html
https://reporterre.net/Comment-la-desertion-gagne-la-France
