At least from what I'm seeing, most people are not quitting and doing nothing. The ones I've seen are taking other jobs. I had two coworkers quit my pervious team and took jobs that have remote options and higher pay (2x in one case).

I think we're seeing people take early retirement (and some increase in mortality/disability) and the higher than usual vacancies they're leaving create an effect where people get hired or promoted into those spaces. The ones who get promoted then leave a vacancy at the lower levels for other to jump into. The increase in wages over the past couple years is enticing people jump around, which I believe is creating a lot of inefficiency (along with potential burnout), which is leading to companies increasing headcount to try to make up for it, while exacerbating the labor supply issues.

But who knows...

I quit my salaried job and now I work at a lingerie store.

The staffing issues at the lower level of society mean that the wages are actually going up - I make 15/hr and could ask for more. (I don't plan on staying long term so I probably WON'T, but I'd get it). Which is around 31k/yr compared to the 50k I was making (unlike most people here, I don't work in tech - I might change that, I don't know). It's doable short-term with some savings as a cushion while I mentally recuperate and lets me be picky about what I jump into next.

The types of jobs that are hemorrhaging people are office jobs paying in the mid 5 figures in my experience, and one component is that now those people can walk and pick up a job in the service industry and not completely lose everything. A 20% paycut is easier to swallow than a 60-70% one.

We've also gotten good at reducing our expenses.

Cool. Less stress, less hours?

Way less stress. I'm working part time for the moment and it looks like I'll have to get something else full time, bc my original plan for making it work fell through. But if I ran out of money in the meantime, I could easily get full time hours at my current job.

And it's a job I can leave at work, where I very immediately have an impact on people, and don't hate people after every shift. Before, I was working in political/civics communications.

Which is why I'm taking my time figuring out what to do next. I don't want to jump into another pressure cooker.

I don't know whether this is typical, but in my case I had 3+ years of living expenses in savings and no mortage anymore (*), so I decided to stop working for 1-2 years and just enjoy life.

In 2020 I was thinking in buying a bigger house at some point, but COVID made me realize that I can be very happy with a more modest lifestyle and that it's just not worth sacrifising my health and joy to have more money in the bank and/or a fancier house when I die. It seems obvious, I know, but it took a global pandemic for me to realise it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(*) I decided years ago to live well below my means and only buy a property if I could pay off in less than 8 years, rather than a fancy house that would require me to take a 20-30 years morgage. Best decision of my life.

This is the mystery, precisely why I wanted to ask the question. Some of it is due to asset prices going through the roof (real estate in some western countries have doubled over the last 3 years).

But this can't be the sole reason. For one thing it is hard to monetise asset prices to get cashflow. But the truth is it is one gigantic puzzle in the macro economics world and you just have to read some central banker transcripts to see how perplexed they are by the entire thing.

Usually the whole science of econ is predicated on trying to keep preferences fixed and then seeing how all sorts of shocks impact behavior. But, perhaps, COULD IT just be that this one time, with this once-in-many generational event, that people's outlook and perspective on their lives truly did change and preferences, all else equal, did in fact shift massively so people have been quitting/making less money/changing jobs?

It could be, but this would be an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. A huge chunk of society suddenly changing their outlook on wealth and work-life balance and then committing to a radical new lifestyle as a result would be a major deal, like a country embracing a new religion.

It could be, assuming the country is so wealthy that it can feed and house lots of people working less. But we are yet to pay back all the money spent on Covid, so it would be very surprising if this state of affairs remains.

A few people I know inherited couple of apartments, its not so hard to live off rent from couple of properties here in Europe, you can get a part time job if u really need to supplement your lifestyle.