In 2021, on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of dissatisfied employees quit their jobs in what came to be known as the Great Resignation. It was a watershed moment that made business leaders across the world sit up and take notice. In the years since, although the number of employees actually quitting has declined, the number planning to switch employers has risen from 19% to 25-30% according to PwC’s Global Workforce Hopes & Fears surveys.
These days, we’re seeing new talent pipelines shaken up by AI implementation. As AI automates vast swaths of low-level work across numerous industries, it’s never been more important to retain skilled humans in your organization.
So, let’s look at what’s different and what’s stayed the same compared to the peak of the Great Resignation, and what lessons we can learn from the days of post-pandemic turnover.
Why did so many employees quit in 2021?
The Great Resignation happened, in part, thanks to a fairly unique set of circumstances. Mandatory remote work policies and employee furloughs exposed deep, long-standing issues with toxic workplace cultures.
Gallup’s US-specific highlights the engagement issues underpinning turnover. At the time, 48% of US employees were actively searching or passively watching for new job opportunities and 3.6 million resigned in May alone. Gallup found that low-engagement teams had 18-43% higher turnover rates than highly engaged teams.
PwC’s 2022 Global Workforce Hopes & Fears survey (in which 19% planned to switch employers) sheds further light on this. In this survey, employees gave their reasons for being likely to change jobs:
- Pay (71%)
- Wanting more fulfilling work (69%)
- Wanting to be their authentic self at work (66%)
- Work flexibility and/or location choice (47%)
- More than 35% planned to ask for a raise even if they didn’t quit
As you can see, many employees quit due to issues with workplace culture, like wanting greater fulfillment or more personal authenticity.
Quitting due to compensation issues may often simply be out of a need or desire for greater income, but it can also be seen as a reflection of the stress employees are under. As work pressures mount and culture deteriorates, you need stronger extrinsic motivators (e.g. better pay) to secure employee retention.
The business costs of turnover in the Great Resignation
The Gallup research mentioned above shows replacing a worker during the Great Resignation typically cost between half and twice their salary. Replacing a $50,000 role could cost $25,000 to $100,000.
That spend comes from recruiting and hiring, plus lost productivity when experienced employees leave and new hires take time to ramp up.
In cases like these, you’d have saved money by simply increasing salaries. That’s why it isn’t necessarily as costly for competitors to poach your top talent as you might think. During this time, Gallup noted that most employees would need a pay increase of at over 20% to switch jobs, but also that this requirement vanished for disengaged workers.
What’s changed since the Great Resignation and what hasn’t?
It’s been an eventful few years since the Great Resignation and the end of the pandemic. A lot has happened in that time, like the rise of AI and fresh waves of global economic uncertainty. So, are people still leaving their jobs in droves or has retaining employees gotten easier?
Turnover has fallen, but intent to quit is on the rise
During the height of the Great Resignation, the rate of US employees quitting voluntarily reached 3%, equating to 4.5 million people according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2026, this fell to 2.97 million, or 1.9%. While the number of people quitting going down may seem like cause for celebration, it comes with one huge caveat. Gallup findings from 2025 show 51% of employees watching for or actively seeking new jobs, up 3% from 2021 levels.
PwC’s findings support this on a global scale, with intention to quit in the next 12 months rising from 19% to 25-30% over several years.
In short, whether you’re looking locally or worldwide, the number of employees looking for an exit has exceeded its heights during the Great Resignation. Even if they don’t follow through, there’s a massive disengagement crisis brewing as global engagement has fallen back to its Great Resignation era level of just 20%.
But, if that’s the case, why aren’t actual quit rates higher?
Even employees who want to quit don’t think it’s a good time
We meant it when we said the Great Resignation came from unique circumstances. Businesses faced huge talent gaps and unfilled roles with no clear solution, which worried employers but created optimism for employees. This was a labor market where applicants could lean into their own value as organizations competed for talent. With a renewed focus on positive, supportive cultures, it felt like the ideal time to leave for greener pastures.
Nowadays, things look quite different. Only 28% of US employees think now is a good time to find a quality job compared to 70% in 2022. 72% now think it’s a bad time despite the fact more than half are actively looking or passively watching for new opportunities.
The AI boom and fear of replacement
With GenAI and agentic AI reshaping the modern workplace, it’s natural some might worry about job elimination. On the one hand, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) predicts that AI will “reshape” 50-55% of roles and potentially eliminate 10-15%.
On the other hand, stats and predictions like these seem to be a cold comfort, as the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer found that 59% of employees fear losing their jobs due to automation. To address this threat to engagement and employee retention, you’ll need to commit to keeping humans in the loop and reshaping their roles instead of replacing them outright and then prove that commitment to your employees.
The talent gaps behind the Great Resignation still exist
With job seeking positivity having fallen sharply since the Great Resignation, these talent gaps must have vanished, right?
Wrong! If anything, they’ve gotten worse. In 2021, ManpowerGroup found 69% of employers struggled to find candidates with “the right blend of technical skills and human strengths.”
Compare that to their 2026 Global Talent Shortage report, which revealed 72% of employers struggle to find applicants with the right skills. You can only mitigate the impact of talent gaps like this for so long before they impair your organization’s ability to stay agile and competitive. But this hasn’t translated into employee bargaining power like it used to, seemingly because employees aren’t yet convinced that their roles won’t be eliminated.
Prevent employee turnover and disengagement in the AI era
Even if the statistical likelihood of someone quitting has fallen, the fact so many are watching for opportunities makes them ticking time bombs. As soon as something comes along, they’ll be out the door faster than you can say, “Would you mind participating in an exit interview?”
To help you prevent this eventuality (as well as the engagement crisis preceding it), we’ve put together a list of four ways your employee retention program can prevent turnover:
1. Prove AI is a growth tool, not a redundancy plan
One of the best ways to simultaneously assure employees their roles won’t be eliminated and get them used to AI is by using it as a development tool for humans in your organization.
For instance, a properly trained AI agent can act as a tutor and guide for skills development such as a coaching agent for customer interactions.
At Zensai, one of the most common ways we use AI is to automate and personalize learning management. AI can manage sign-ups, certifications, personalized learning recommendations, and even bespoke content creation. This helps employees to take learning into their own hands while proving you’re serious about investing in human talent.
2. Redesign roles around human strengths instead of automated tasks
Although AI is very good at processing information and automating busy work, it’s less effective at fundamentally human tasks, such as:
- Understanding context
- Making judgment calls
- Emotional sensitivity
AI is also fundamentally incapable of taking responsibility for an outcome (good or bad). By empowering your people to own outcomes and focusing their roles on these essentially human responsibilities, you redefine AI as a high-powered support tool instead of a replacement for labor.
3. Make career development visible in real time
Employees may not be quitting like they were during the Great Resignation, but that doesn’t mean you can do without staff retention strategies. To show your people they still have a future with your organization, you should be giving visibility to career development at every opportunity.
Got a new skills course? Share it in comms channels and encourage everyone to sign up. Just promoted a great internal candidate? Publicly congratulate them on their new role and hype up the qualities that earned them a promotion. Publish it in an employee newsletter or dedicate part of your next group meeting to shoutouts. The sky’s the limit when it comes to ways of doing this.
4. Equip managers to lead through uncertainty
Gallup has previously found that less than half of managers report getting formal management training. So, take the opportunity to teach them essential core and soft skills like:
- Active listening and conflict resolution
- The dos and don’ts of effective feedback
- How to delegate more effectively
- Feedback technique and coaching recommendations
Additionally, they need the right tools to succeed. A regular, two-way feedback process like an employee check-in can massively improve their awareness of how their team feels. This will allow them to build 1:1 dialogs with each employee, making it easier for them to address fears around things like job security and to spot engagement crises before they spiral into full-fledged turnover.
There are lessons we must learn from the Great Resignation
The Great Resignation may be a thing of the past, but we’re still feeling its impact today. Employee disengagement has failed to improve, and your average employee is just as eager to find something better as ever.
That’s why HRDs and business leaders must think back to the early 2020s, when widespread employee upheaval forced us to be better. To keep exploring how to improve, we suggest reading about the three things you must do to solve the Silent Crisis of Disengagement, or go to the source by watching our on-demand webinar.
This article was originally published September 5th, 2021, and has since been updated.
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