Thanks boss, and bye? Since the start of the pandemic, many employees placed in partial activity or forced teleworking have had time to take a step back on their careers, and to ask themselves if it was not time to change their life. According to
a Microsoft study Covering some thirty countries, 40% of the employees questioned plan to leave their company this year. In the United States, this has resulted in a movement of magnitude.
According to an article of The Atlantic, more than 700,000 employees of “professional and commercial services” resigned in April, unprecedented.
In France, this desire for elsewhere materialized this summer in the hotel and restaurant industry. Cafes and restaurants are facing a very high turnover this year, with real recruitment difficulties in certain regions. But what about more globally? Is there a massive movement of individual voluntary departures within companies, which would reflect a general fed up?
Resignations that do not take off
To answer these questions, we have chosen to focus on two indicators: resignations of employees on permanent contracts and contractual terminations, even if the latter can sometimes conceal forced departures *. The statistics available to date tend to show that the wave of voluntary departures has not yet reached France.
Resignations from permanent contracts between 2018 and 2020 through 20 minutes
If we focus on the resignations of employees on permanent contracts (see graph above), we observe that there were around 310,000 in the last quarter of 2020 (latest data available). This is almost 20% less than the same period in 2019. The period was nevertheless special, with confinement from October to December and a high use of short-time work. This context may have affected the intentions of the resigners. “When you have an economic activity which does not restart, it is complicated to resign, because the probability of finding a job quickly is very limited” explains Philippe Waechter, chief economist at Ostrum Asset Management. The next resignation figures (1st quarter 2021), published at the end of July, will therefore have to be closely scrutinized to see if the trend changes.
The specter of the new epidemic wave
Regarding conventional breaks, there too, there is not yet a clear upward trend. After a plunge in spring 2020 (see graph), linked to the confinement and total shutdown of certain companies, followed by a catching-up phase in the summer, the situation has stabilized. In May 2021, the Dares (the statistical service of the Ministry of Labor) recorded 36,637 approved ruptures: this is slightly more than in May 2019 (35,962 ruptures).
Number of contractual terminations between 2019 and 2021 per 20 Minutes
Should we then expect an acceleration in resignations and conventional terminations in the coming months? “Since June, the economic recovery has been more marked in France. If we continue on this trend, some employees may feel that it is time to move from the simple intention of departure to the actual departure, ”Judge Philippe Waechter. On the condition of course that a future epidemic wave of Covid-19 does not cause a sudden slowdown in the economy and does not come to shower the desires of employees elsewhere.
* The contractual termination normally requires the “free and informed consent” of the employee, which is therefore akin to a voluntary process. However, a 2016 study by the Center for Employment Studies qualifies this assertion. Conducted with 4,500 employees who left after a contractual rupture, it shows that 30% of them felt they had been “forced” to leave. In addition to this, you need to know more about it.