The great resignation: how the pandemic increased time millionaires

Throughout the pandemic, I have read countless articles on how the concept of work is changing. As most of the country, and the world, was forced into lockdown, a lot of employees who could work from home were left in a strange predicament.

Both employees and employers had to adjust to a new work style, which led to a lot of burnouts from employees and micro-management mania from employers. This even led to productivity tracking software, which led to a lot of morality issues amongst companies. (which you can read about in my article here).

But what I learned from reading this article here, was the concept of time millionaires:

• First named by the writer Nilanjana Roy in a 2016 column in the Financial Times, time millionaires measure their worth not in terms of financial capital, but according to the seconds, minutes and hours they claw back from employment for leisure and recreation
• The UK and the US are currently in the grip of a workforce crisis. One recent survey found that more than 56% of unemployed people were not actively looking for a new job. Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that many people are not returning to their pre-pandemic jobs, or if they are, they are requesting to work from home, clawing back all those hours previously lost to commuting.
• The enforced downtime of the pandemic caused many of us to reassess our attitudes to work, and whether we might be able to lead less lucrative but more fulfilling lives. 
• The UK workforce is stressed out, overworked and underpaid. British people work the longest hours in Europe, the equivalent of an extra two-and-a-half weeks of unpaid overtime a year. Wages have not kept up with inflation, meaning that in real terms, earnings are lower than before the 2008 financial crisis.  
• But decoupling our self-worth from the credits flowing into our bank accounts and the titles on our business cards is not always easy. As a result, leisure has become a dirty word. 
• The calls to end the fetishization of overwork, and its concomitant self-optimisation culture, are gaining traction: both the UK and US have prominent campaigns for a four-day week.   

A lot of employers are going to have to provide flexibility to attract new talent, such as working from home and flexible hours. We are already seeing a temporary labour shortage, which can be argued was also caused by Brexit, but difference in alignment for employees and employers also was a factor.We can definitely see this affecting a lot of markets. As more employees focus on their leisure time, recreational activities will grow-especially after all these lockdowns!

Will we ever get a four-day work week? Hard to predict, but you will not get any complaints from me.