Growing Number Of Frustrated Workers Opt To Quit

It may be hard to believe, but even with the nation's unemployment rate stuck at around 9 percent, there are plenty of workers calling it quits. Fed up with lack of opportunity or having to "do more with less," a greater number of employees are heading for the exits.

Nearly 1.1 million workers left their jobs voluntarily in October, the largest number in more than a decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And the majority of those in this group quit before securing another job, suggesting that levels of frustration are on the rise.

For many, a perceived lack of career advancement may have led them to leave their jobs, according to a blog post by YES Partners, an executive search firm with offices worldwide.

"Top performers have had it with stagnant opportunities and rewards, and are starting to jump ship now that the job market is a bit looser," says Pat Sikor, senior researcher at TNS Employee Insights, in a press release.

YES Partners notes that a series of recent studies have shown employee engagement -- the amount of enthusiasm and interest workers bring to the job -- is falling.

Those include a recent survey by consultancy BlessingWhite which shows that just a third of workers in North America were engaged in their jobs and 13 percent said they planned to leave their jobs within the next year. Perhaps unsurprisingly, workers who reported being less engaged were most likely to leave their jobs.

One reason that employees are becoming less and less engaged is that employers are ignoring the problem, says Mark Royal, co-author of the book, "The Enemy of Engagement."

Royal, a senior consultant at the Hay Group strategy consulting firm, tells AOL Jobs that the result is a quiet drain on workplace productivity at a time when levels are already sapped.

High frustration levels, he says, are affecting the employees who are most motivated and committed to their employers.

Next: Workplace Frustration Is The Enemy Of 'Employee Engagement'

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