Demand for better pay and conditions has been bubbling for a long time, the Fight for Fifteen has been going on since $15/hr was a livable wage and then the mass layoffs of 2020 radicalized workers. And business owners are pissed.
Bernie Sanders ran 2 presidential campaigns and got a lot of airtime for worker power. And layoffs screw people over for short-term gain and then incur more costs when staffing up again. It is an embarrassing place to be in so businesses jump on the narrative of a great resignation.
Anecdotally, the 2020 pandemic response by employers has had an huge impact on employee attitudes and loyalty. I work in healthcare and my employer made the very poor choice to do layoffs and furloughs in the summer of 2020 due to depressed demand before COVID surged in our area. This soured the relationship with staff just as we were about to get hit hard that fall and we've struggled to keep up ever since.
Bernie Sanders ran 2 presidential campaigns and got a lot of airtime for worker power. And layoffs screw people over for short-term gain and then incur more costs when staffing up again. It is an embarrassing place to be in so businesses jump on the narrative of a great resignation.