There you stay, I'm leaving the company: why more and more people are leaving their jobs

Rosa Sánchez has decided to resign from her position. She is going to give the company she works for a few days to find a replacement, but there is no turning back now. She is fed up with her boss, her constant demands and an overload of tasks that makes it difficult to have free time without strengthening the team. And she can't take it anymore. Like her, more and more professionals are leaving their jobs without looking back . They throw in the towel because, no matter how many times they try, the working conditions they are subjected to do not change for the better.

In 2024, more than three million people (3,180,679) voluntarily resigned from their companies, 4.4% more than the previous year and 49% more if we look at the data from the Social Security Treasury for 2021. But the authors of the study The Great Resignation: Some Data and First Conclusions Regarding the Spanish Labor Market go even further: resignations have experienced constant growth since 2013, more than doubling since then. According to the three professors from the universities of Seville and Huelva, it is growing faster than the increase in the number of members. So that, if before resignation was a minor figure in the Spanish labor market, dominated by layoffs, since the pandemic (and the so-called Great Resignation in the United States ) it has become the order of the day. The lower the unemployment rate, the greater the number of resignations, say teachers Francisco Javier Calvo, Dolores Gómez and Celia Sánchez in their analysis.

In Spain, four out of 10 workers are dissatisfied with their jobs. 54% are unhappy with their salary (compared to 46% in 2024) and more than half of them believe that there are no opportunities for promotion in their company, according to the Hays 2025 Labour Market Guide. It is therefore not surprising that almost seven out of 10 of the workers surveyed by the company confirm their willingness to actively seek a new job this year; the majority are already doing so, says the firm's general manager for southern Europe, Christopher Dottie, who estimates that around half will find one this year.

It is also not surprising that nearly half of the companies surveyed, 46%, admit to being immersed in a process of talent flight. “A very high number,” according to Dottie. Miguel Pardo, president of Vistage Portugal, says that at the annual congress of the organization, the largest association of executives in the world, held recently in Oregon, the first concern of global CEOs is the retention and attraction of talent, ahead of economic stability, sales or artificial intelligence. The concern is there. However, in Dottie's opinion, very few companies are acting to stop resignations, at least in Spain. “Most limit themselves to launching a counteroffer to see if they can get employees to stay two more years. With a few exceptions, the salary increase they put on the table does not exceed 5,000 euros per year or 10% of the salary at most.”

The phenomenon of resignations occurs for many reasons. Of course, there is an underlying discontent with the job and a salary that is not adequate for the tasks, as well as disagreements with bosses or teams, but the number of resignations caused by internal disorganization (especially in the retail sector) is growing strongly, says Dottie. Although these are not the only elements: “There are deeper factors that show a more structural change in our labor market ; changes linked to an alteration in the previous vital centrality of employment and that link with criticisms of self-exploitation (…); to a progressive revaluation of family and personal needs, even leisure, compared to the demands of work,” highlights the aforementioned report.

Discontinuous fixed

It also highlights that the figure of the fixed-term contract, promoted by the 2021 labour reform, has contributed to the large increase in voluntary resignations experienced since then. Until December of that year, resignations were concentrated in temporary contracts (two-thirds of the total), with lower quality of employment, less seniority and shorter duration of the employment relationship, but as of the regulatory change, resignations have become “drastically” of workers with permanent contracts (70% of the total), which fits with the massive incorporation of fixed-term contracts into the market, “an indefinite relationship, but of worse quality”. An opinion shared by Mónica Pérez Callejo, Head of Studies at InfoJobs: “Leaving is increasing because the conditions that temporary workers previously had are being transferred to fixed-term contracts,” she says.

Generation Z and millennials are more likely to leave their jobs because they do not align with their values ​​and because of issues of equity. However, according to Alberto Gavilán, director of talent at the Adecco group, they are no longer the only ones causing voluntary resignations. “Although those with more seniority in the position are more reluctant to change companies, in recent months we have seen that they are also resigning. The new generations have had a knock-on effect for older professionals.” Especially in sectors close to full employment, such as technology, energy, health or care, he adds. “With a dynamic labour market, permanent workers of any age are more certain that they will find a new job,” explains Gavilán.

InfoJobs confirms this dynamism that is driving mobility. In 2024, says Pérez Callejo, both the number of candidates and the number of applications for job offers have increased by between 3% and 4%. “People are much more active in their job search, although we do not see a greater number of vacancies being published,” he concludes.