The surprising science of quitting

The surprising science of quitting on x (opens in a new window) The surprising science of quitting on facebook (opens in a new window) The surprising science of quitting on linkedin (opens in a new window) The surprising science of quitting on whatsapp (opens in a new window) Save The surprising science of quitting on x (opens in a new window) The surprising science of quitting on facebook (opens in a new window) The surprising science of quitting on linkedin (opens in a new window) The surprising science of quitting on whatsapp (opens in a new window) Save Pilita Clark Published March 29 2026 Jump to comments section Print this page Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. For reasons I have no way to explain, March has been a big month for resignations. At least three people I know have decided to throw in the towel. One was poached by a rival company. Another went off to write a book. The third decided that, after nearly 20 years in the same job, he wanted to do something else. More than 200,000 people in the UK have been resigning in the first three months of the year for more than a decade, so it is no surprise that I know a few of them this year. But I keep thinking about these decampers in ways I have not before, thanks to a new book called Jolted . Its author is Anthony Klotz, the American academic who correctly predicted that the pandemic would lead to what he called a Great Resignation of workers across the US. As I wrote in 2022, Klotz himself joined the flood of bolters, leaving his US university for University College London’s school of management in the UK. He is still at UCL, studying the same topic that has obsessed him for the past 15 years: how, when and why people decide to quit. The book makes the simple but not very obvious case that one of the most under-acknowledged realities of working life is that quitting is often triggered by a single incident, or jolt. Ind...