Stressed-Out Supply Chain Managers Are Throwing in the Towel, Reports Bloomberg
Supply-chain managers quit their jobs last year at the highest rate since at least 2016 due to a mix of burnout and a desire for fatter paychecks.
The high rate of turnover aligns with the escalation of supply-chain woes in 2021. The pandemic led to shuttered manufacturing plants, backed up ports and rapidly increasing transportation costs. Those headaches have largely fallen to supply-chain managers to sort out, making their jobs far tougher — but also more lucrative.
“With increasing opportunities against the backdrop of the supply chain crisis, it comes as no surprise that supply-chain managers have increasingly sought out greener pastures,” said Kory Kantenga, a senior economist at LinkedIn.
LinkedIn, a division of Microsoft Corp., calculates turnover by analyzing member profiles to determine the number of people who left their jobs each month. The figure is compared with the average for 2016, which LinkedIn calls the “separation rate.” For supply-chain managers, the average separation rate increased by 28% from 2020 to 2021, according to data compiled for Bloomberg. That’s the highest since LinkedIn started tracking the data five years earlier.
Burnout is part of the equation, Kantenga said. New opportunities are also playing a role, in part because ongoing supply-chain disruptions are fueling demand for professionals who can deal with them.
