7 in 10 tech workers say they're considering quitting their job within the next year in a new survey

 

• Seven in 10 tech workers are considering quitting in the next year, per a new survey of 1,200 people.
• Their top reasons included working hours, limited career progression, and toxic work environments.
• The labor shortage continues to cause havoc across multiple industries.

Seventy-two percent of US tech workers are considering quitting their jobs in the next 12 months, according to a new survey from learning software firm TalentLMS and Workable.

About four in ten of the 1,200 IT, software, and tech workers surveyed said that limited career progression made them think about leaving their jobs.

Other common reasons for considering leaving included non-flexible working hours, feeling underappreciated, and toxic work environments.

Just under a third of respondents said a lack of remote working options was making them consider quitting, too.

Eighty-five percent of respondents said that they felt their company focused more on attracting new employees than investing in existing staff. They said that more training and learning would make them feel more motivated, and that so would greater flexibility in where and when they worked.

Another 58% of all respondents said they were suffering from job burnout, though only 30% of those thinking of quitting cited burnout as a top reason why.

The US is suffering from a huge labor shortage, catalyzed by the pandemic, and people are reassessing what they want from work.

This has fueled the "Great Resignation," with record numbers of people quitting their jobs. Some are returning to education, while others are swapping industries or going freelance.

A separate survey by Joblist found that 73% of Americans were considering quitting their job, with more than a quarter of these people saying they would feel comfortable quitting their job without a new one lined up.

The labor shortage has hit industries ranging from education and healthcare to trucking and restaurants.

To plug their labor shortage, some companies have hiked up wages and started offering hiring bonuses.

Some chip companies, including Intel, are even hiring students who are still in college to plug a labor shortage amid surging demand for semiconductors.

 Here’s the why:

• Relentless employer demands
• Continual interruptions and disruptions to work-life balance
• Ill-defined projects
• “a steady stream of half-baked requests from stakeholders”

All of these elements contribute engineers’ dissatisfaction and yet, if the median annual wage for engineers is $91,000, which is substantially higher than the average American income, how bad could it be? Shouldn’t we just say “toughen up cupcake”?

It’s worse than we thought…

Of the 600 data engineers surveyed, 78% stated that they wished the job “came with a therapist” to help with stress management. Nearly 80% of respondents stated that they were considering a move to a different career altogether. The researchers who conducted the survey warned that burnout must become “every organization’s top priority” in order to retain top talent for the long-term.