Amid the “Great Resignation,” Minnesota has recently experienced lower job resignation rates compared with the rest of the country, WalletHub reports.
Minnesota had the fourth-lowest resignation rate in the latest month (2.5%) and the eighth-lowest resignation rate this past year (2.44%), the report says.
WalletHub rank-ordered the 50 states and the District of Columbia by the rate at which people quit their jobs, based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The report authors gave the latest month’s resignation rate double weight, or two-thirds of the points. The remaining third of the score relied on the resignation rate of the past 12 months.
A map comparing resignation rate rankings showed resignation rates have tended to be higher in the Southeast and New England. Arizona, Wyoming and Montana ranked fourth, fifth and sixth in the overall scores, respectively.
New York had the lowest latest past-month and past-year resignation rates (1.90% and 1.91%, respectively). Georgia had the highest latest past-month (4.80%) rate, and Alaska had the highest past-year resignation rate (4.17%).
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Assistant Vice President for applied research in Community Development and the Center for Indian Country Development Ryan Nunn provided commentary in the report on July 1. A disclaimer said his remarks do not represent his or the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’ position on WalletHub research related to the topic.
The financial support that the pandemic recession prompted contributed to the economy’s quick recovery, but as the financial support has waned, the labor market remains strong, Nunn said at the time. He said that while the quit rate is historically high, the hires rate is also historically high.
“This is in many ways the ideal scenario from the perspective of both workers and the overall economy because it helps match workers with the jobs where they can make the largest contributions,” he said.
The labor force participation rate for ages 25-54 workers is just below its prepandemic level, he said at the time. He said employers can’t count on having plenty of workers whom they can pay low wages.
“What we have today – as of early summer 2022 – is a tight labor market where workers are more empowered to leave their jobs and find better ones,” he said. “This can lead to large improvements in wages and job conditions for those workers. In general, we should think of quits as a sign of labor market dynamism and a means by which the labor market can reallocate workers to be maximally productive.”
He said many employers may have to be more thoughtful regarding how they treat and compensate their workers and how to become more efficient. He said some firms and industries will use remote work in a wise manner, which will benefit workers and productivity growth.
