Companies are now facing the “Great Attrition,” coupled with increased competition for workers. The transportation and logistics industries have been especially hit hard, with the influence of worker-retention challenges and rising labor costs being felt across the entire value chain. When businesses cannot keep employees happy and loyal, they end up spending more time and money hiring and training new employees, which has its own set of regular attrition.

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With employee benefits and work/life balance expectations at an all-time high, searches for “how to quit a job” have quadrupled worldwide since April 2020. Some people are willing to live frugally while searching for a job that best benefits and supports their health the best.

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But how exactly did it get to this? Pre-COVID, the average World unemployment rate for 2019 was 5.37%, and almost double the following year for some countries such as Chile (11.5%) or Canada (9.6%). With a few countries, such as India, suffering almost a 24% unemployment rate in April 2020. So just two years later, how are we having the exact opposite problem?

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For many of us, COVID-19 showed a new side to how owners and CEO operated their companies. When large corporations such as Amazon start to get in trouble for failing to follow basic COVID legal guidelines, employees realized they had to start standing up for themselves and how they wanted to be treated.

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It is believed that this pivot in thinking is what pushed that first domino.

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Companies now are in a reactive position when it comes to hiring talent and keeping their current employees happy. In Asia, about 45% of insurers are now covering outpatient treatment for mental health. While these changes are necessarily and beneficial for both employees and companies, it usually comes at a loss when determining that best balance between expectations and reality.

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What are some ways that companies and hiring teams can place themselves in a proactive position when hiring? Do some companies feel as though labor wage and benefit expectations are too high?

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