People In Kentucky Are Quitting Jobs Faster Than Any Other State

For the last four decades, wage growth for workers in the United States has grown at an alarmingly glacial pace. 

Job burnout is currently through the roof.

Affordable childcare in America is a joke, and is a crisis on working families, and the larger economy. 

The pandemic made people reevaluate how they earn money. (We wrote about this phenomenon in the restaurant industry back in July.)

Those factors and a confluence of other ones have led America into what’s being called the Great Resignation, where workers across the country are quitting their jobs at an accelerated pace.

And Kentucky is leading the nation.

According to a recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 84,000 Kentuckians quit their jobs in August, which is up from 58,000 in July. 

That August number marks a 4.5% quit rate, the highest in the nation, which is followed by Georgia’s 4.2% and Idaho’s 4.1%. The national quits rate was 2.9% in August 2021. Kentucky was one of seven states with a quit rate over 3.5%.

At his COVID-19 briefing on Monday, Gov. Andy Beshear said the situation is complicated and nuanced.

“Our challenges in the labor market are complex,” he said. “Some folks remember or just want to say it was about unemployment and the unemployment pay — you can’t get unemployment if you quit. So, when you’re thinking about quits, there’s something more complicated there that’s going on. It may be that people are looking for a different environment. It may be that be that other jobs have opened up. It’s going to require that the private sector get a little creative, and also, in many instances, try to improve conditions, maybe even pay.”

The governor also said that the number of hires in the Commonwealth outpaced quits by 19,000, and he is simultaneously optimistic about job growth.     

Kentucky’s economy is on fire. Today alone we’re announcing more than 1,700 new jobs across new location and expansion projects totaling over $800 million in new investments – including one of the largest investments in Bowling Green’s history. 1/2

— Governor Andy Beshear (@GovAndyBeshear) October 28, 2021

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This article appears in October 27, 2021.