About 3.5 million people have at least temporarily left the U.S. workforce since March 2020. More than one-third of them—1.2 million—are in the leisure and hospitality industry.

This has created huge problems for restaurants, hotels, and other leisure and hospitality businesses that have struggled to find workers for record numbers of job openings in 2021.

A big part of this decline seems to be explained by the “great resignation.” Leisure and hospitality workers are quitting at the highest rates of any industry. About 1 million quit in November 2021 alone. And the data suggest many of them aren’t simply swapping one hospitality job for another but leaving the industry entirely.

Why are these workers quitting, where are they going, and what can be done to bring them back?

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