Jaclyn Haga remembers the movie “Flashdance,” the story of a female welder with a dream to become a dancer – and its distinctive theme song urging listeners to “take your passion and make it happen.”
Haga, 41, is a single mother of five in Cullman County who spent 20 years in cosmetology, working two jobs, before she decided to head back to school to become a welder.
She did this despite being seven months pregnant on the first day of classes at Wallace State Community College in Hanceville.
To make it happen she had to quit a job she’d held for almost three years at a Cullman auto parts store.
Now, in 2022, she’s looking to finish up her certification in welding.
Haga got the chance after winning a grant from the Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham, which is aimed at helping women out of poverty and into careers traditionally dominated by men.
Even though Haga was pursuing a dream, she said coming face-to-face with it wasn’t easy.
Jaclyn Haga was one of many Alabamians who quit a job in 2021, hoping for a better career opportunity.
“During class, I was so nervous I had to go and vomit,” she said of facing her first day of school in 20 years, which came two months before she gave birth.
“I’m one of the oldest people in the class, but I’m determined that I’m going to make it.”
Haga’s is one life in what is being called “The Great Resignation.”
In the second half of 2021 more than 20 million Americans quit their jobs, according to government statistics, the highest rate ever recorded.
More than 4.5 million quit just in November alone, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
The vacant positions include almost 5% of jobs in education, more than 6% in retail, and more than 8% in health care.
The numbers are higher for hotels and restaurants.
In Alabama, approximately 252,000 residents quit their jobs from July through October, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Those numbers place Alabama somewhere in the middle of the pack among other states, with roughly 3% of the total work population quitting over that time.
The reasons why record numbers of Americans are seeking other jobs, or not seeking at all, vary.
Some cite the COVID-19 pandemic, now nearing its second anniversary. Others mention new opportunities related to a growing number of job vacancies in other sectors. Still others saw the lure of retirement.
And then there are those, like Haga, who decided the time was right to chase a dream.
The career change for Haga came after almost two decades of interest in metal fabrication, and her stint at the auto parts store.
On weekends, she commuted eighty minutes one-way to Northport -as long as the Interstate wasn’t backed up - to work at a salon.
But when the COVID-19 lockdown happened in 2020, she began to rethink her life. Being a female in an auto parts store was part of it.
Male customers would assume she didn’t know much about cars, she said.
She was getting older. When she saw a Facebook post about the grant opportunity, she was willing to take a chance if someone would take one on her.
“It’s definitely been a challenge to do homework assignments, lab tasks, work at the salon and manage children,” she said.
“My goal is to get a job where I have benefits and will be able to buy my own home for me and my children. I hope to instill in my daughters that they too can be anything they want to be in life.”
Chris Cash, 45, wasn’t even looking to change jobs and, while he was aware that record numbers of Americans were switching professions, that didn’t factor into his decision.
What did, however, was a big change brought on by the pandemic.
Back in November, he was living in Steele and commuting to his job in Bessemer at a pumps and piping company, where he had been employed for the past four years.
Then he was contacted through LinkedIn about taking up a job in e-commerce.
There are more than 180 million Americans on LinkedIn, the social media working platform, which has also seen record job turnover among its users.
In a 2021 interview, LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky said that by the end of September, about 54% of the platform’s worldwide users had changed the job in their profiles.
Cash had basically planned on staying in his job until retirement. But the prospect of working from home was a definite selling point.
“I was pretty secure in my job,” Cash said.
“(Working remotely) is one of the things that completely changed over the last two years. That’s one of the features that got me to come to this new job. Benefits are what really sell a new job, and now, working from home is a benefit to a new company.”
The pandemic affected Brad and Connie Condray of Gadsden as well, but in a different way. The couple both left their jobs in December, but not by choice.
The medical services provider they had worked for receives federal funds, meaning they had until December to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Both of them refused, and lost their jobs.
They are not alone.
Thousands have left the healthcare field over the last year due to the vaccine mandate, according to The Wall Street Journal, though medical companies say 80 to 85% of their workers did receive the vaccine and boosters.
Brad, 56, said he felt the vaccine mandate is coercive. He almost immediately found another job at a doctor’s office.
Connie, 55, has several religious and medical objections to the vaccine, saying she feels there are too many uncertainties about it.
The couple also feels the vaccine is unnecessary, since they both had COVID-19 in August of 2020 and recovered.
Connie is attempting to start her own business.
“Leaving our jobs wasn’t something we had thought about, until we had to,” Brad said.
Leslie Worthington turns 60 this year.
She left her position last year as Dean of Academic Programs and Services at Gadsden State Community College after nine years at the school to become vice president of academic affairs at the Technical College of the Lowcountry in Beaufort, S.C.
From her new office on campus, she has a view of the water.
Worthington had just finished her 25 years in the Alabama educational system and was eligible to retire.
But Worthington also had the itch to become a vice president or a president in higher ed. It was a move she had contemplated for some time.
“I was just going to start applying in the state in the Alabama Community College System,” she said.
“If I hadn’t have gotten an opportunity, I would have stayed where I was until I decided to retire. The decisive factor was when I was willing to look outside the state.”
Worthington illustrates that what is happening might be better termed as “The Great Reshuffle” – a moment when people left the job they had for the job they wanted, as openings proliferated.
But since the COVID pandemic began, higher education is one sector of the economy that has seen many retirements and career changes, many driven by the virus’ effect on teachers and the workplace.
Worthington said her inbox was filled with scores of job openings.
The idea of relocating, especially in a city bookended by Savannah and Charleston along the Atlantic Coast, proved tempting.
But there was still some soul-searching. Her sons are still in college, and she had gotten used to taking her granddaughters to school.
At the same time, the pandemic made her consider looking elsewhere. Worthington said she knows people who have lost loved ones to COVID-19, and a friend of hers died suddenly last June of a heart attack.
“You start to feel like it’s now or never,” she said.