When Surae Thomas graduated with a bachelor’s in dental hygiene in 2020, her career outlook was uncertain.
Despite being in what might be deemed as a secure field—medical—it was a precarious time for her professional path.
“No one wanted people in their mouths because of COVID,” she said. She was working an entry level job at Amazon to offset living costs while pursuing her studies. However, she found hard to land a job in her desired field so she stayed with the e-commerce giant.
“I was hopping between other part time jobs alongside Amazon, and then I found a program they were offering. I applied, got in and realized pretty early on that I wasn’t going anywhere anymore. It’s amazing.”
The opportunity she speaks of is Amazon’s RME Program, Amazon’s Reliability and Maintenance Engineering (RME) Mechatronics and Robotics Apprenticeship, which is an intensive paid training program that focuses on a variety of technical skills and prepares participants for a role on Amazon’s RME team as an electromechanical technician.
She says it was perfect because it allowed her to remain in the STEM field and have a promising career in a booming field, robotics and automation. As this MIT and Amazon study points out, workers who like they are in fields with a future have a more positive outlook overall.
Before landing the opportunity, Thomas alluded to the fact that she leaned into the notion that a worker should move from job to job to get the pay and title bump they deserved. She wasn’t alone, as many zillennials and millennials alike participated in the Great Resignation, which is a period during the height of the pandemic when a large number of workers were quitting their jobs to pursue greener pastures.
Experts first started noticing the trend in early 2021 and by 2022—data showed more than 50 million US workers had quit their jobs, with a large number landing better-paying positions, more flexibility and attractive job perks.
Now, the power dynamics have seemed to shift. The movement lost significant momentum since 2023, leaving the number of resignations below four million in 10 of the first 11 months of the year per a recent JOLTS report. That quit rate has steadily dropped, as evidenced by recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing the quit rate sits at around 2.2%. This is a huge difference from the peak of the Great Resignation, when a record 4 million workers were leaving their jobs monthly.
This can be explained by myriad of factors but some of the most widely accepted is the slow right sizing of the economy post-pandemic, a cooling job market and rising inflation leaving workers prioritizing a steady paycheck and a healthy workplace culture above all else.
Brianne Rush can attest to this. She serves as the VP of Operations for Kuno Creative, a digital marketing agency based in Ohio. At just 34, she’s banked 13 years with the company and have been promoted several times. This is a bit of an anomaly since data shows that millennials stay at their jobs an average of two years and nine months.
Much like Thomas, Rush recognizes most of the positives of her job, which is what keeps her there despite all of the job hopping data out there.
“Every day I get to learn something new, so I’m never bored,” Rush said. “Then the second part is I chose a really great company to work for. We work remotely so I have work-life balance. I have autonomy.”
Thomas shares the same about her position.
“I’m able to be exposed to so many things, work hard and still have a life,” Thomas said. “The hours are predictable which is a plus.”
In terms of what the future holds for her career with Amazon?
“I’m not going anywhere.”