Job changing prevalent in Sonoma County as post-pandemic priorities shift

Although Sonoma County’s unemployment rate posted a pandemic low mark in May, that number doesn’t tell the full story of what’s happening among the workforce.

While working remotely, many people adjusted their lives from being focused on work to revolving around family. This has occurred even as they remained productive on work-related tasks or actually improved their output.

As a result, men and women have had a “shift of perspective” since spring 2020 when it comes to their careers, said Homa Bahrami, UC Berkeley business professor and expert in workplace strategy.

Priorities have changed, fundamentally altering the workforce, experts say.

Now, to many people quality of life and flexibility mean more than money. The economy here and nationwide has fully reopened, yet droves of workers are switching careers or quitting their jobs. About 4 million people walked away from positions in April alone, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the most in one month since December 2000 when the federal agency started tracking it.

In Sonoma County, the labor force is still about 10% smaller, with about 20,000 fewer workers, compared to February 2020, the month before the coronavirus barged into the area. Several industries, particularly leisure and hospitality and manufacturing, continue struggling mightily to fill job openings.

The pandemic has tilted the workplace to favor workers. Many companies are trying to adapt to employees’ demands to keep them, grappling whether to extend remote working arrangements or require staff to return to the office — at least part of the week.