Name: Why Are Workers So Unhappy Right Now?
Uploaded: 2023-11-30T21:52:00Z
Duration: 7 min 17 s
Description: The work world is still in flux nearly four years after the pandemic threw offices for a loop. But a variety of data show that workers are unhappier now than they’ve been in years. Wall Street Journal deputy bureau chief Vanessa Fuhrmans joins host Danny Lewis to explain why. Photo: iStock

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The work world is still in flux nearly four years after the pandemic threw offices for a loop. But a variety of data show that workers are unhappier now than they’ve been in years. Wall Street Journal deputy bureau chief Vanessa Fuhrmans joins host Danny Lewis to explain why. Photo: iStock

https://m.wsj.net/video/20231130/c38f533c-3333-4066-9239-1ed79dc34b11/1/hls/manifest-hd-wifi.m3u8

Why Are Workers So Unhappy Right Now?

Danny Lewis: Here's "Your Money Briefing" for Thursday, November 30th. I'm Danny Lewis for the Wall Street Journal in for JR Whalen. Are you feeling bad about your job right now? Angry, stressed? If so, you are far from alone. By many accounts, workers in the US are unhappier with their jobs than they have been in years and it might have to do with how the approach to work life has been changing since 2020. Wall Street Journal Careers and Workplace Deputy Bureau Chief Vanessa Fuhrmans looked into how work has become so dissatisfying. She joins us now. Vanessa, you looked at a bunch of metrics on worker happiness, or really, unhappiness. What did they say?

Vanessa: Well, there's a lot of polling of workers these days and it seems like every time another survey comes out, workers are unhappier and less engaged and more stressed than they were just a few months before. And we were a little surprised we weren't seeing workers bouncing back from the crazy levels of burnout and stress and discontent that we saw in the thick of the pandemic. You know, another thing that really intrigued us is if you look at how the average American worker's doing today compared to 2019, people are making a lot more money on the whole, most people have more paid time off and more flexibility than they had before, even if they are coming into offices again. You know, we looked at a number of datasets. Gallup does an annual survey of tens of thousands of workers every year. And among US workers in particular, the numbers that showed they were more angry, more stressed, disengaged, all were higher than the year before. An HR tech company that asks workers routinely, "Would you recommend your place of work to others?" they showed that the levels of people who would actually recommend their place to work to other people had fallen precipitously, particularly in 2023, a 10% drop this year alone.

Danny: Wow. So you also talked to workers from around the country in a bunch of different industries. What did they tell you about why they're dissatisfied with their jobs?

Vanessa: Well, as you can imagine, everyone's unhappiness is different, but there are some common threads. You know, if I were to sum it all up, it's that during the pandemic, workers really launched into this reckoning of their work lives that they just haven't finished with. They're still trying to figure out, "What's my relationship to work?" "How hard do I wanna work?" "How can I cut off the stress of work in the rest of my life?" And companies meanwhile, are really trying to move back to, you know, pre-pandemic norms.

Danny: But a lot of companies also spent a lot more on employee benefits since 2020, you know, 20% more on things like mental healthcare, childcare, wellbeing bonuses. Why hasn't that helped much?

Vanessa: The whole question around remote work still remains a big factor. People are still trying to figure out how that works. On one hand, we all like having more control over where and how we work, and some people are very content working remotely all the time. But a lot of people, even when they relish that freedom and flexibility, are still feeling the isolating effects of remote work. And because many of us are working in hybrid settings where some of us are remote, some of us aren't, or we're just simply not working in the same place as our colleagues, we are feeling that friction as well. We're not quite in sync with our colleagues all the time. People are not socializing as much in the workplace as they did before. So all the niceties and the fun parts about working together are not quite as there like they used to be.

{Danny] What are some of the stories that you've heard from workers about how remote or hybrid work has changed their work experience?

{Vanessa] You know, we spoke to one woman who, since the pandemic, had been working largely remotely. And then more recently, she was called back to her office two days a week. And in the meantime, she had moved, so the commute was now going to be an hour long. You know, getting her kids onto the school bus and being there when they came home, that certainly disrupted all of that. And she said, "This is still a much better situation than in 2019 when I was going into the office and making that commute every single day." You know, we realized in the pandemic that isn't always necessary to do. All the things we sort of just assumed were just a part of the way we worked, we are now questioning still. And so people's expectations have risen as far as what they expect from their work life and how well they expect their work life to fit into their personal life.

Danny: So many people have changed jobs in the last few years. How are they doing with regards to job satisfaction?

Vanessa: Yeah, that's another surprising shift that we've seen. Usually, data shows that when people start a new job, that's when they're actually the most excited and engaged. And it's even known as sort of a new job honeymoon. And that's something that's changed. New workers are actually less engaged, they feel less included, and they also are talking more than longer tenure workers about leaving. And the new workers also felt like that more this year than they did last year. So one theory is that people have been able to jump ship for new jobs for a lot more money, up until recently. The wage premium for switching jobs has really gone down. So people who are leaving for new jobs are not getting perhaps the pay bump that they'd hoped for. And then they arrived in a new situation and found, "Oh, well, maybe I thought this was a better opportunity than it actually was."

Danny: Are there any lessons here about what makes people feel good about their jobs in today's workplace?

Vanessa: Freedom and control are a big part of it. Certainly control over how the work gets done. That seems to be a big factor. Another factor in this continues to be a challenge though, is how to bring back the the more social aspects of work culture. A lot of people are saying, "I don't go to happy hour anymore with coworkers." "I don't chitchat with coworkers like I used to." Some people simply say, "I don't have a friend at work anymore like I used to." That, I think, is still a big part of what makes people happy about being in the workplace, and that's something that companies are going to have to tackle as well.

Danny: Vanessa Fuhrmans is the Deputy Bureau Chief for Careers and Workplace at the Wall Street Journal. And that's it for "Your Money Briefing". Today's show was produced by me, Danny Lewis, with supervising producer Melony Roy. We'll be back tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.

WSJ's Your Money Briefing podcast is your personal-finance and career checklist. Finance reporters and experts break down complicated money questions every weekday to help you make better decisions about managing your money. 