The mystery of the mutinous workers

Sign by a main road in Milwaukee in the middle of October, 2021. Photo: Rashmee Roshan Lall

The US national press is preoccupied with beltway politics but the biggest story may actually be the impenetrable mystery of the ‘I quit’ brigade: How on earth are all those workers who quit their jobs managing to survive? How do they put food on the table? How do they pay their bills?

The number of unfilled retail jobs rose to 1.1 million in July. Across sectors — restaurant, hotel, construction, transport — there is a paucity of staff. It’s having an unexpected but visible effect — shelves are empty or half-empty; there are gaps in product lines; restaurants are reducing their hours of service. (The Frontier Restaurant in the tiny village of Amherst, for instance, now closes in the afternoon because it just doesn’t have enough people to cook and serve.)

In Wisconsin in mid-October, I heard Walmart offer $23.55 per hour to anyone willing to work in the warehouse. In September, Walmart boosted the…