The convening power of social networks was tested in early 2021 when a few foreros of the Reddit platform began to convince young people who had given themselves to investment through trading apps without commissions that they could bend the arm to some Wall Street giants. They chose their meme values in which large funds were bearish and soar prices until they caused significant losses to those ‘windmills’ against which they were fighting. A year later the pattern is repeated, but you no longer seek to hit the establishment financial system, but the current labor system.
It is well known and is confirmed by countless data that the pandemic has changed dynamics in the labor market. In the US, one of the most noted phenomena has been the reduction of the labor force. The participation rate has dropped As many workers have retired early as well as others prefer not to be employed for fear of contagion and there are some, especially women, who have left the market to take care of their children in a context of closed educational centers. Others have directly renounced disillusioned to a system that pays little and does not let ‘enjoy life’. That is the leitmotif that runs through the Redddit r / antiwork subforum (antitrabajo).
Those who renounce being part of the workforce are joined by those who, tired of what they find in their jobs, decide directly to leave them, both in order not to work and for a better paid job. It is no accident that large numbers of Americans quit their jobs last year, rising to 4.5 million in November, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. This is the highest “churn rate” since the department began monitoring it in 2001. Data for this ‘Great Renunciation’ show that many workers have also left their jobs after receiving better offers. Other data that are limited to this circumstance are the advance of salaries (0.6% month-on-month in December) and the historical level of job vacancies (10.6 million).
Although the “anti-work” theme has been a recurring theme on Reddit since 2013 and the thread was created that year, This situation derived from the pandemic is what has triggered users and interactions. If the number of members in October exceeded 180,000, now it exceeds 1.6 million. One of the moderators of the subforum, Doreen Ford, explains to the Financial Times your own case. After 10 years working in retail stores in Boston, he realized that he hated it because “at best it was pointless and at worst it was degrading, humiliating and exploitative.” His ‘exit’ was given to him by his grandmother: he could take advantage of his love for animals to make money walking dogs and that is what he has been doing since 2017.
That’s the spirit Ford and others seek to bring to Reddit: encouraging their followers to work as little as possible in traditional jobs, or to abandon them altogether for self-employment, with the goal of prioritizing time off. The “Slackers,” as members of this anti-work movement call themselves on RedditThey largely believe that people should strive to work as little as possible, and preferably on their own. Many of those who have stopped working say they run their own micro-businesses, like Ford, or work the fewest hours possible in part-time jobs to survive. Some accept roommates or raid garbage containers in search of food to reduce their cost of living, says the moderator.
“Perhaps we consider that there may be an alternative to living our lives enslaved by the richest among us, serving their benefit,” said historian Benjamin Hunnicutt, a professor at the University of Iowa whose books on the history of work are listed in the forum library. “Maybe there are other things to do with our lives than piling up profits for the ultra-rich, and taking that time, claiming that time.”
The sub-forum is also full of testimonies that, according to the workers, show that their bosses do not care about them. A user cites the case of a promised raise that went to a colleague Job with no explanation: “Just a friendly reminder, unfortunately we are all disposable and can be replaced in an instant. Even if you try your best and enslave yourself for hours, it won’t work.”
Others try to turn disappointment into profit. It is the case of another user who boasts of working from home while infected with covid-19, but “playing video games 85% of the time”. “The boss earns a dollar, I earn ten cents. That is why I am dedicated to being silly during work hours,” he writes.
It is for all this that the most famous publications of the sub-forum are screenshots of resignation letters and text messages. They were so popular that moderators have restricted their posting to Sundays.
A “long-term risk”
Although economists claim that it is almost impossible to measure how changing attitudes about work have influenced labor market trends, the cultural shifts are there and some analysts, such as those at Goldman Sachs, have already warned in a November research note that the anti-work movement poses a “long-term risk” to the labor participation rate.
A reflection of this climate are the complaints from companies such as Tyson Foods or FedEx, which cannot find workers despite having raised wages. This movement has also been involved in the wave of strikes last fall in protest at years of huge profits in some companies and stagnant wages with the added fear of contracting COVID in the workplace. The “loafers” became involved in some of those labor actions, submitting thousands of false applications on a hiring website that Kellogg’s created to replace striking workers.
The moderator Ford does not take away epic from the matter, but fantasy: “Most of us are normal people. We have jobs that we do not like, which is the reason why we are in the movement, to begin with”, he emphasizes in his testimony to the FT.
The great job rotation or why millions of workers leave their jobs every month in the US
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