For several months, the two most prominent news headlines about jobs were the decline in unemployment and how hard it has been for companies to find workers at reasonable compensation rates. People could quit their jobs and find better ones elsewhere. People resigned at the highest pace in Georgia, and states in the South had the fastest pace in general.
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The unemployment rate has changed radically over the past three years. From 2019 through early 2020, the jobless rate was under 4%. By February 2020, it had dropped near a historic low of 3.5%. The COVID-19 pandemic made the rate soar to 14.7% in April, the highest rate since the Great Depression. It took until recently to regain the 20.5 million jobs lost because of the virus.

Unemployment rates have been very different from state to state, as has always been the case. In August, the national jobless rate was 3.7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It was below 3% in Florida (2.7%), Georgia (2.8%) and Alabama (2.6%).

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WalletHub reviewed resignation rates in August. Its States With the Highest Job Resignation Rates report pointed out that “As the economy has started to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a surge in job openings, with some employers having a difficult time filling all their open positions.”

The resignation rate in Georgia in August was 4.8%. Kentucky followed with 4.4% and Tennessee at 4.3%. There is no explanation for the cluster. Neither is there one for the states where the rates were lowest: New York (1.9%), District of Columbia (2.3%) and New Jersey and Pennsylvania (2.6% each).

A look at the past 12 months based on the same measurements shows that these states were near the top and the bottom of the resignation list.

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