There is a side effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic that wasn't expected - The Great Resignation.
In November, 4.53 million Americans quit their jobs, up from 4.46 million in October. Over the past 5 months, a record 21.3M workers quit.
But why?
GMQC Financial Expert, Mark Grywacheski with the Quad Cities Investment Group, said there's a number of reasons including generous government unemployment benefits, the Omicron variant of COVID and people simply choosing to retire - and in some cases, retire early. What's more:
"This labor shortage has forced employers to raise wages and offer signing bonuses to attract workers," Grywacheski said. "And what we're seeing is people jumping from one job to the next looking for any increase in wages or to capture a new signing bonus."
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there's currently about 10.6 million unfilled job openings but not enough people looking for those jobs.
"We're seeing a significant challenge in getting people to go back to work," Grywacheski said. "This labor participation rate - the percentage of Americans that are working or actively looking for work - is at a 45-year low."
To hear why, watch the video above.