How the COVID-19 Pandemic Prompted More People to Change Jobs

An unprecedented number of U.S. workers quit their jobs in 2021 and 2022, the first full two years of the COVID-19 pandemic — a phenomenon dubbed the Great Resignation.

What followed was what’s come to be known as the Great Reshuffling: Some workers exited the labor market entirely, others quit and eventually rejoined the labor force and others changed employers with little or no break in employment.

Analyzing industry subsectors rather than just industry sectors captures job shifts within and across industries, painting a richer picture of how frequently workers changed jobs during the pandemic.

New U.S. Census Bureau statistics from Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) show to what extent U.S. workers changed jobs across industries during and after the pandemic emergency was declared over in 2023.

LEHD’s Job-to-Job Flows (J2J) data product now includes an experimental research release of job flow counts across industries from the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) down to a more detailed subsector level (3-digit NAICS).

Analyzing industry subsectors rather than just industry sectors captures job shifts within and across industries, painting a richer picture of how frequently workers changed jobs during the pandemic.

For example, Food Service and Drinking Places is a subsector of an industry called Accommodation and Food Services.

Our statistics show that in 2021, workers in this subsector were more likely than they were in 2019 to switch to jobs in another industry subsector like General Merchandise Retailers, part of the Retail Trade sector.

They were also less likely to transition into jobs in Administrative and Support Services, a subsector of yet another industry, during that same period.

These new origin-destination statistics also show that the Administrative and Support Services subsector was a top source and destination of jobs for workers changing employment.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a marked impact on the frequency of job changes between subsectors.

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