Lie Flatters, beware: Inflation is making it riskier to take a break from your job. The 'Lie Flat' labor protest movement originated in China as a backlash against escalating workplace demands. It quickly spread around the world, evolving into a reassessment of priorities and lifestyles in a stressed-out, pandemic-weary society. While the trend has been most closely associated with burned-out millennials, it's merged of late with the Great Resignation, which has seen workers of all ages leaving their jobs, retiring or switching careers. Three Bloomberg columnists gathered on Twitter this week to discuss the costs and benefits of dropping out, even temporarily. For some people, it may come down to choosing between wealth or health. Here are the lightly edited highlights of their conversation, moderated by Bloomberg Beta's Roy Bahat.
Bahat: What has been your perspective on the Lie Flat movement?
Erin Lowry: My first response when I saw Lie Flat take off in conjunction with the Great Resignation was to have a conversation about mental health and why burnout is a large part of the reason people are opting out.
Allison Schrager: But there are always trade-offs. I wrote my column to say that these are critical years, and the choices you make now can last a long time.
Alexis Leondis: I've been concerned about the things you should be thinking about if you do want to leave your job, or decide that you're burned out—everything from health insurance to taxes.
Bahat: We've been hearing about the rising quits rate, Lie Flat and the Great Resignation. What exactly is going on here?
Schrager: The quitting is definitely a bit of a mystery. Initially everyone thought it was because of high unemployment benefits and all the money we sent people. Some people are coming back to the labor market, but if you crunch the data, you're still seeing elevated rates of people leaving the labor force and not getting a new job right away. I was surprised to see that almost all the high quit rates have been among people with a high school education or less. Some are actually re-skilling—using this time and money to gain new skills to get a higher paying job, rather than just quitting because they're burned out. And a lot of women in particular still have huge childcare issues.
Lowry: Lie Flat and the Great Resignation are certainly related, but they're two different phenomenon. College-educated millennials in particular feel that they were sold a bill of goods that was never really delivered in the way that was "promised." Then you add a global health scare on top of the burnout, and all of a sudden we're thinking more critically about what we want out of life and what we want out of work.
Leondis: I agree the two are related but motivations for each are slightly different. For new college graduates, the job market is booming, especially if they're in science or engineering. But for those who graduated just a year ago, they're really struggling. It's another example of how the labor market can be so weird. We're in a very unprecedented time and it really depends on what the demand is and what the industry is to get a sense of who's finding a job and who isn't, and how quickly it's happening.
Bahat: Is cryptocurrency part of the story? Mark Cuban tweeted that 4% of the quits are because of newfound crypto wealth.
Schrager: That could be a factor for some people, but I doubt it's a big one because more quits have been among people with less education who tend to have less savings. If people are getting rich on crypto and are quitting their careers for that, I'd recommend they cash out now and lock those gains in.