>IMO official numbers dramatically increased

By dramatically increased you mean went from 1.8% during a pandemic when people were afraid to move around to 2.5% as things eased, well in line with historical levels.

I think the OP is much more accurate with the statement "the idea that employees are quitting in droves is exaggerated".

In fact, if you look back more than the year you picked, you'll see there was a huge drop, and the current blip is most likely those people feeling some relief from the pandemic. The rates are no where near out of line historically.

Here's historical data graphed for all 4 regions you listed.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTS00MWQUR

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTS00SOQUR

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTS00NEQUR

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTS00WEQUR

This is all semantics around what qualifies as a "great" resignation, but don't those charts show people quitting at the highest rate in at least 20 years?

Yes, right after not quitting and giving the biggest dip in 20 years. So this is likely the backlog.

And it's not a very big amount. If the rate lasts a long time let me know. Most likely, as should be clear from the graphs, there is very little out of the ordinary happening.

I'd add that, although I haven't really been to restaurants in the past couple of months, things were very clearly not normal in the fall. Limited seating even outside, closed for multiple days a week even though there was clearly demand, etc.

The table appears to be “quite levels” which are not the same as “we aren’t employing you” levels.

I suspect both are up higher than they were in 2019.