“Great resignation”, labor shortage, desire for training, search for meaning… The working world is going through a big shock. Not so sure, nuanced sociologist Marie-Anne Dujarrier. Technical service.
At first glance, the job market has given the impression of a Copernican revolution over the past year or two. More and more industries are understaffed, transformations have never seemed so abundant, and the search for meaning seems to be essential before utility and happiness become the new directive.
But what is it really? Not much news, to be honest, thinks sociologist Marie-Anne Dujarrier. Professor at the University of Paris, Lise, member of the joint laboratory of Cnam and CNRS and author Incorporeal control (1) and: Disturbances in work (2), This researcher believes that first of all, a series of tensions are passing through society, born as a result of the excesses of management, the ecological crisis and the lessons of the Covid-19 epidemic.
“The Big Quit,” a new trend that’s sending Tik Tok into a frenzy
Mrs. Figaro. – Are training and dismissal a new phenomenon?
Marie-Anne Dujarrier. – No, not more than they are massive. The number of quitters, 1.8 million in 2021, or 6% of the active population, is essentially the same as in 2007 and 2008, 2018 and 2019. As for training, the numbers are missing. First of all, we have more or less valid examples and requests expressing “wishes”. However, they seem stable at about a third. It is still too early to know if there is a fundamental change in the labor market. We don’t have enough data or perspective.
However, the relationship with work seems to be troubled by questions about meaning, quality of life, usefulness… What is going on?
These questions are old and constant. Incarceration today highlighted the fact that the most painful and rewarding tasks were valued less than others with less clear social utility. This physical difficulty of the tasks is then combined with the psychological difficulty of many professions today. Goal management, both private and public, encourages people to work only to “make the numbers,” even if that means doing things that are considered absurd, counterproductive, abusive, or useless. All this while digital devices that suppress human interactions, ignoring the random and the unique, proliferate. They often combine the useless with the unpleasant. In these configurations, it is difficult to construct meaning in one’s daily activities.
Especially in a world of crisis…
We can no longer ignore the extent of ecological transformations and their dramatic nature for animals. Even if you turn your head because the information is too painful, it’s there. He sticks. Also, quite unwittingly, billions of people today are recruited to produce goods and services that contribute to diminishing our chances of collective survival. And they, and they know it, and this tension is crossed.
A quarter of French people are overstressed at work
Where does the feeling of inner conflict come from?
Yes, every time what we do to the world, in its social, existential, and material dimensions, rings false. In France, some young graduates and qualified employees, struck by the enormity of the environmental problem, staged their departure from this system, creating a stir. But what is more striking than its scale is the modesty of this disruption movement in the face of the objective dangers we face. Quantitative, but also political modesty, because this individual act changes careers, but not society.
In other words.
Leaving the system is a bold act, but it does not pretend to change the system or institutions at all. This temptation to leave is shocking.
Does it reflect a desire to be more embodied, to say “I”?
Rather, what is missing is the “we”, the collective and the cooperation, in order to innovate to change what threatens and makes us unhappy. The managerial, economic, and sometimes political discourse insists that each of us is autonomous and responsible. But whatever our profession, we are first and foremost vulnerable beings, inheritors of certain social and family histories that give us strength and limits. Moreover, each of us is vitally dependent, objectively, subjectively, on other living beings. This is also true in the world of work.
(1) Incorporeal control, Marie-Anne Dujarier, La Découverte, 2017, 264 pages, €11. Available at leslibraires.fr.
(2) Disturbances in work, by the same author, PUF, 2021, 444 pages, €22. Available at leslibraires.fr.
Source: Le Figaro
