By Martin Padulla for staffingamericalatina

More than 4 million job resignations, thousands of workers who were declared essential at the worst moment of the pandemic are on strike, October illuminated the manifestation of a process that began to take shape last year… what happened?
The duration of the pandemic has generated a major reordering of vital priorities in many people. Emotionality seems to be at the surface. Many voices are warning about the direct consequences of this unprecedented period in our history on mental health. Burnout is growing and so is discomfort, especially among the lower income strata but also among those who feel that their rights are systematically violated, among those who perceive an imbalance in the worklife balance.
One of the main media in the region headlined “The Great Resignation, the labor phenomenon that the United States is experiencing”. Are we facing a local phenomenon that only affects the great North American country or is it possible to observe similar phenomena in China, Italy and even in some countries of the region?
In the United States, some people draw a line from the Great Depression through the Great Recession to the Great Recession and on to the Great Recession. And they posit that the new normal has a focus on work-life balance and millions of people willing to fulfill new American dreams through entrepreneurship. Startup creation figures are at an all-time high.
There are signs: according to Fortune 93% of knowledge workers want more flexibility, almost 6’% are willing to listen to offers. According to Morning Consult, 46% of full time employees are considering or looking for another job.
Millennials and Centennials focus on personal development and in Spain, far from the United States, an individual who left the system and started to develop professional services remotely says “now I have more availability for life”. Perhaps this is just an anecdote. Recently, the Uruguayan intellectual and former President Julio María Sanguinetti said in an interview that “behind the small anecdotes of daily life, there are historical processes”.
It is as if the periods of confinement and confinement that implied living with death, also left a desire to live but in a different way. The climate is rarefied.
What is the impact of State aid to alleviate these moments of restriction of freedoms? We do not yet have the elements to answer this question. Are these reconsiderations possible because there is still enough money from public aid? It is too early to answer this question. What is certain is that when obligations are renounced, it is possible that rights are also renounced. Or maybe in some cases the dynamic is reversed and the approach is: as I have no rights, I renounce my obligations….
We are facing a complex phenomenon, workers do not want existing jobs. Companies cannot count on the talent they need. Countries may experience a sharp loss of productivity and competitiveness. The scaffolding is weak; it may need to be strengthened.
It would seem that the time has come to return to Montaigne and the need to update the idea of living an ethical, cultivated and humane existence.
Labor markets must be re-founded and create the Great Experience, an environment of flexibility with a set of rights for workers regardless of the form of work they perform. A Great Experience that is at the antipodes of dehumanization and that connects training and work, taking into account health in an integral sense, the environment, free time, leisure and recreation.
If one of the main impacts of the pandemic has been the generalized awareness of finitude, perhaps it is important to visualize the end of one era and the beginning of another. It is likely that we are facing social phenomena that are both a symptom and a consequence of an epochal change.
The region can avoid the Great Exclusion and build a new normality that is more flexible, more formal, more diverse, more inclusive, in short, more sustainable.
Will we have among our vital priorities as societies, a more transcendent one?

About Martín Padulla
Managing Director of Staffingamericalatina. Martín Padulla is a Sociologist (USAL), MBA (UCA) and expert in labor markets. He published Flexible Work in South America and Regulatory Environments for Private Employment Agencies in Latin America, two books about the new labor realities.
mpadulla@staffingamericalatina.com

About Staffingamericalatina
Staffingamericalatina is the independent digital platform specialized in Latin American labor markets.
It generates and disseminates content, research and developments on topics such as Employability, Youth Employment, Training for Employment, Diverse Forms of Work, Decent Work, Private Employment Agencies, Active Employment Policies, Telework, Public-Private Articulation of actions aimed at generating Diverse Forms of Work with sustainability.
It is the meeting point for the new normality of the world of work.