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What it means to you
There is an amazing financial opportunity opening for you and many older people if you take the time to realise what’s happening and learn how to exploit the opportunity.
This article will empower you to see and understand the significance of the Great Resignation and the burgeoning Gig Economy (a remarkable global financial opportunity for older people) and will direct you towards the mentoring you may require to exploit it.
Background
COVID has killed millions worldwide and could be described as the first seriously harmful global pandemic in history. While there have been other hazardous pandemics (Spanish flu, the Great Plague, etc.), none of them has been truly global, and none of the other global pandemics (flu, for example) is considered seriously harmful.
‘So what?’ you ask.
Well, without making light of the COVID catastrophe, it is useful to note some of the positive outcomes of the pandemic.
COVID rapidly and globally boosted the implementation of remote working. The technology was available preceding the turn of the century and was extensively used in specific industries like IT, but a broader remote-work mindset was largely absent, and therefore we continued, for the most, going to work as we had done for centuries.
This has now changed.
Having tasted the benefits of remote work (for employee and employer);
- Reduced commuting (saving time and money)
- Improved work-life balance
- Employee productivity increases
- Healthier employee lifestyle and reduced healthcare costs
- Ability to hire better talent (global reach)
Many individuals and organisations are unwilling to completely revert to the old work model.
This work-model paradigm shift stimulated the Great Resignation and the Gig Economy.
The word ‘gig’ in ‘Gig Economy’, comes from musical jargon and refers to a performance by a musical group. When applied to the working world, the concept refers to sporadic jobs of limited duration. The person hired to do the job is responsible for fulfilling a specific role within a project but is not generally employed by the company in the traditional sense. The Gig Economy, therefore, is a burgeoning global remote-working labour market characterised by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs.
The Great Resignation, also known as the Big Quit and the Great Reshuffle, is an ongoing economic trend in which employees have voluntarily resigned from their jobs en masse, beginning in early 2021. Possible causes include wage stagnation amid rising costs of living, long-lasting job dissatisfaction, and the desire to work for companies with better remote-working policies. Some economists have described the Great Resignation as akin to a general strike.
Historically high quit rates indicate worker confidence in the ability to get higher paying jobs, which typically coincides with high economic stability, an abundance of people working, and low unemployment rates. Conversely, during periods of high unemployment, resignation rates tend to decrease as hire rates also decrease. For example, during the Great Recession (Dec 2007 – June 2009), the U.S. quit rate decreased from 2.0% to 1.3% as the hire rate fell from 3.7% to 2.8%.
Resignation rates in the U.S. during the pandemic initially followed this pattern. In March and April 2020, a record 13.0 and 9.3 million workers (8.6% and 7.2%) were laid off, and the quit rate subsequently fell to a seven-year low of 1.6%.
As the pandemic continued, however, workers quit their jobs in large numbers despite continued labour shortages and initially high unemployment rates. This was the beginning of Great Resignation.
The COVID-19 pandemic allowed workers to rethink their careers, work conditions, and long-term goals. As many workplaces attempted to bring their employees back to work in-person, workers desired the freedom that remote work afforded them during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as schedule flexibility, which was quoted as the primary reason to look for a new job. Additionally, many workers, particularly in younger cohorts, are seeking to gain a better work-life balance. Moreover, millions of people now have long COVID; this disability can alter the ability or desire to work.
According to a study conducted by Adobe, the exodus is being driven by Millennials and Generation Z, who are more likely to be dissatisfied with their work. More than half of Gen Z reported planning to seek a new job within the next year. Harvard Business Review found that the cohort between 30 and 45 years old had the greatest increase in resignation rates. Racial minority, low-wage, and frontline workers are also more dissatisfied with their work in the United States.
The Opportunity
Ageism in the workplace is nothing new. Forced retirement ages have been a standard part of the work environment for decades, and while this is being contested as discriminatory and therefore unconstitutional, there is very little that can be done to ensure hiring decisions are not ageist.
Initially, the technological revolution seemed to further discriminate against the old, as most of the technological remote work opportunities were directed towards individuals with skills most common among the young (coding, for example).
But this has changed.
With the onset of the Great Resignation and the Gig Economy remote work opportunities in a broad range of industries and experiential fields have blossomed. Ironically now, decades of work experience and the capacity to work remotely place older individuals in an advantageous position to apply for remote work opportunities if they are willing to embrace the new working paradigm.
This is your time to exploit your years of work experience, and to milk the Emerging Gig Economy. All you require is the willingness to learn how…
‘Iris’ Angels’ has been created to mentor and enable older people to realise the valuable (and profitable) role they can play in the emerging Gig Economy.
Get your slice of this growing pie…