This article was originally published in Business Insider.
American workers are not all right.
While news about “quiet quitters” spread like wildfire in 2022, things have actually gotten worse in America’s workplaces since that viral trend lost steam. Engagement at work has hit an 11-year low, Gallup’s long-running survey of US employees found — in February only 30% of US workers reported being fully engaged with their jobs. Plenty of ink has been spilled trying to understand the causes of this growing crisis. Is it remote work? Layoffs? An increasing lack of loyalty among employers?
One possibility that hasn’t been as widely discussed is a fundamental problem with the work that people are being asked to do. For some people, their job can be a source of meaning and fulfillment, but for others, it’s simply the thing that pays the bills. In a 2021 YouGov survey, only about half of Americans said they felt that their job made “a meaningful contribution to the world” — and the feeling was lowest among millennials and Gen Zers.
