As U.S. labor productivity recorded its biggest ever drop in the second quarter, some are blaming the rising trend of “quiet quitting” for the slump.
Quiet quitting simply means to stop putting in extra effort into a job, sticking to what an employee is supposed to do and nothing more. The trend is believed to have intensified in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced employees to put in more effort after many of their colleagues were laid off. Workers who continued to work remotely were eventually finding it difficult to separate work from personal life.
And now, employees are reportedly quiet quitting, deciding to establish a boundary as to how much effort they are willing to put into their jobs. The trend is emerging un the data: U.S. non-farm labor productivity fell by 4.6 percent at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in the second quarter. In the first quarter, productivity had declined by 7.6 percent….