SPECIAL REPORT

‘The Great Resignation’:

Exploring the Global Impact and Changing Behaviours
© BlueOptima Limited 2005-2022. All Rights Reserved
Contents
What’s ‘The Great Resignation’? 3
Where is it happening and by how much? 4
Why is it happening? 4
The impact on software developers 5
Regional impacts 5
The impact on Productivity 6

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Special Report: The Great Resignation (May 2022)
Understand the true extent
of ‘The Great Resignation’...
What’s ‘The Great
Resignation’?
The ‘Great Resignation’ is an economic trend in which
individuals have been quitting their jobs en masse
since early 2021. Globally we have seen resignation
rates hit historic highs during this period, which is
why it’s referred to as “The Great Resignation”, “The
Big Quit”, and “The Great Reshuffle”.
In the early days of the pandemic, the fact is that
very few people were quitting their jobs. It was
an uncertain time. Lockdowns were enforced and
the world was faced with the prospect of a global
pandemic. It was a time when people were not
inclined to quit their jobs, likely because in such
uncertain times people are more averse to the risk of
changing their jobs.
As stability returned to the global economy and various
countries pushed to unwind restrictions on movement,
we saw a sharp increase in the rate of resignations.
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Special Report: The Great Resignation (May 2022)
So we have to wonder, is The Great Resignation
simply a misrepresentation and it should actually
be titled “The Return of the Missing Resignations”?
Are the mass resignations of 2021 simply those that
have been stored up from 2020 since the start of the
pandemic, when those who would have quit anyway
felt comfortable enough to make the jump.
The idea of “Missing Resignations” alone may not
fully explain the magnitude of the all-time high
quit rates in 2021. Interestingly, the psychologist
who coined the term “Great Resignation” believes
that the pandemic and lockdowns caused people
to take a step back and rethink their lives, work and
surroundings in a deep way. In turn, this has inspired
many individuals to make changes in their lives,
resulting in more resignations. For a lot of people
there might be varying reasons, perhaps it is time
to move closer to family because the pandemic has
highlighted how far away they might have been.
Or perhaps, they disapproved of their employer’s
behaviour during the pandemic. Whatever
the reason, it seems that the sharp changes in
resignation rates are in some way correlated to the
progression of the pandemic.
Where is it
happening and by
how much?
The US Labor Department is leading the way in
this data. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, a part of
the US Labour Department, who regularly reports
on quit rates, have stated that resignation rates
normally sit at around 2.5% of employees quitting
each month. In the first months of the pandemic, this
dropped to around 1.5%. Yet in April 2021, the rate
of resignation reached a record-high of 3%.
Similarly, the UK Labour Force Survey, published by
the Office for National Statistics, tells a similar story.
Their data shows that resignation rates dropped
significantly in 2020, and then soon after increased
to record-high levels as well in 2021.
Australia and India have also published similar
data showing trends which validate that “The Great
Resignation” is likely a global phenomenon.
BlueOptima’s own data on the activity of over
400,000 software developers also follows the same
trend for resignation rates across the globe.
Why is it
happening?
After comparing the BlueOptima data with the US
data, the simplest explanation would be that the
increased resignations of 2021 were simply the
delayed resignations from they start of the pandemic
in 2020. However, the truth is that we don’t know the
exact reasoning behind why the Great Resignation
has occurred, nor just how symmetrical the data
is between the US and UK government datasets,
because the ONS publish the overall number of
resignations rather than the rates themselves.
After doing an analysis to substantiate an
explanation for the Great Resignation, there were
four things found which suggest that neither
1 Source: Figure 1.
2 Source: https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-the-great-resignation-who-changed-jobs-where-they-went-and-why-180159
3 Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/09/majority-of-workers-who-quit-a-job-in-2021-cite-low-pay-no-opportunities-for-
advancement-feeling-disrespected/
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Special Report: The Great Resignation (May 2022)
explanation is really corroborated by the data:
1. The quantity of excess resignations during
the measurable four months of 2021, more
than covers the delayed resignations from two
months at the start of the pandemic in 2020, so
“Missed Resignations” alone doesn’t explain it1.
2. The idea that people resigned due to rethinking
their whole life and making drastic changes
is not substantiated either. The vast majority
of resignations have been people moving
“sideways” into basically the same job but
working for a different employer2.
3. Pew Research Centre surveyed people and
asked individuals why they quit their jobs with
the results showing that most people cited
these top three reasons:
a. Low pay
b. No opportunities for advancement
c. Feeling disrespected.
It is not clear if the Pew poll was from a
selection of predetermined responses or if
participants were free to cite any reason.
The Pew poll also doesn’t provide any definitive
answers as to why any of those three reasons
would suddenly get worse in 2021. 3
4. Another possible cause which has been
suggested by various think-tanks is that the
resignations could be attributed to a mental
health crisis. The idea being that the pandemic
and lockdowns took a hard toll on people’s
mental health, and that’s why more people are
getting frustrated and quitting. After the last
two years many would say this is the most likely
explanation. However, online sources have been
unable to yet substantiate this hypothesis with
hard evidence, nor provide any conclusive results.
There remains a lot of vaguery around the reasons
for The Great Resignation. One thing is clear,
however, the trend of increased resignations in 2021
is starkly present in the BlueOptima data as well as
the ONS from the UK and the BLS data from the US.
Figure 1: Monthly resignation rates for a cohort of over 300,000 developers across over 90 countries.
The impact on Regional impacts
software developers
BlueOptima’s benchmark data employed in this
special report, contains activities of over 400,000
developers and more than 126 Billion static metrics
changes. The data indicates that “The Great
Resignation” is certainly observed in the wider
software developer population. Figure 1 shows that
between 2017 and 2020 (inclusive) we saw little
movement in resignation rates with resignation rates
estimated to be between 1.9% and 2.6%. Matching
the statistics reported from other countries across the
globe, including the USA. However from Q2 (April to
June) 2021 we saw resignation rates spike to 3.0%
and then even more shockingly the following quarter
(July to September 2021), we saw another jump to
3.9% with September 2021 showing a 4.2% rate of
resignation. The September resignation rates would
be roughly equivalent to 24% annual employee
turnover if sustained over 12-months.
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Special Report: The Great Resignation (May 2022)
There is no doubt that this is a global phenomenon
and as we can see through our data sets, these
trends are being felt across every corner of the globe.
The country which we have seen take the greatest
hit was Australia with a 2.5pt spike. Pre-pandmic
their resignation rates were sitting at 2.0%.
However during the Great Resignation in 2021 they
saw an average resignation rate of 4.5%, which
was the greatest shift that we saw across all our
regional specific data.
The country which took the second greatest hit
was India at a 1.3pt increase. Pre pandemic India
was sitting at 1.9% however, during the Great
Resignation we saw it increased to 3.2%. Similarly
Poland and the UK saw a 1.0pt shift, USA and
Switzerland experienced a 0.9pt increase, China
felt a 0.8pt adjustment and Singapore saw a 0.6pt
adjustment. See Figure 4 for how this translates
across the regions. These were the countries with
the greatest shift from our data set, although many
other countries saw a smaller but similar shift.
 5
years of data

300,000+
developers
Region 2019 Average 2021 Average
Asia-Pacific Group 1.9% 3.6%
Eastern European Group 1.8% 2.9%
Latin-American & Caribbean Group 1.4% 3.%%

90
North American Group 1.7% 3.7%
Western European Group 2.1% 3.4%

Figure 2: Regional resignation rates.

countries
Asia-Pacific Group

Eastern European Group

Latin-American & Caribbean Group

North American Group

Western European Group

0% 2% 4% 6%

Figure 3: The shift in regional resignation rates from 2019 to 2021.

The impact on
people were most likely looking for stability and
trying to maintain a pre-pandemic work routine with
little distractions and the burnout was yet to hit.

Productivity However, this was a very different story in 2021. A

Alarmingly we have seen a significant impact on
developer productivity, with a direct link between
productivity and resignation rates. If companies are
not already feeling it then they certainly will be soon!
Our data shows that resignation rates were at their
lowest during the beginning of the pandemic but
also productivity was at its highest. A time when
time when we saw resignations hit an all-time-high
and productivity crash.
Now interestingly, the great resignation isn’t just
hitting a company’s workforce from the moment
a developer steps out the door on their last day.
In actual fact, we are seeing that a developer’s
productivity drops dramatically from two months
prior to their departure. This means, not only is a
company affected from the date of termination but

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Special Report: The Great Resignation (May 2022)
Figure 4: The increase in resignation rates to record levels (top swimlane) coincided with record decreases in productivity (bottom
swimlane). Cohort of over 300,000 developers across over 90 countries.

they are losing an additional two months from their
developers on top of their downtime while they hire
and train a new team member.
Overall the Great Resignation is affecting so many
companies globally and to a greater extent than
most realise. Will the rate of resignation continue to
increase? Based on existing trends there is certainly a
high possibility but at some point the data will plateau.
A day that many teams will be looking forward to.
If you are looking to objectively measure your teams
to help understand the implications of the Great
Resignation contact our Data Science team.
The Great Resignation is affecting most organisations
with it hitting some much harder than others.
Companies are losing top talent, money and time but
what’s more, the existing developers are left being
less productive. If you are looking to counteract the
effects of the Great Resignation, then why not take a
look at some of BlueOptima solutions.

Figure 5: The productivity of software developers drops in the months preceding their resignation.

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Special Report: The Great Resignation (May 2022)
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