COVID-19 produced two years of unsteady work environments, leading to mass employee distrust and dissatisfaction and permanently altering the workforce. The US saw a record high unemployment rate of 14.7% in 2020 due to pandemic-related layoffs, and while today’s unemployment rate sits much lower at 3.7%, lingering effects of the pandemic layoffs and pay cuts persist within the job market.
Americans are demanding better treatment, pay and benefits from their employers. However, due to global inflation, high interest rates and supply chain issues, the cost of doing business is rising, and employee wages and hours are often the first to be affected. This, coupled with ongoing feelings of mistreatment during the pandemic led to the perfect storm for disgruntled employees. It is no wonder that employers are heavily concerned about workplace violence, especially when the news is full of stories like the 2021 Indiana FedEx incident, wherein a former employee entered a company warehouse and shot eight people dead.