Vox Sentences - American workers are over it

More than 4 million American workers quit their jobs in September; the Qatari Embassy in Kabul will serve US interests there. 

Tonight's Sentences was written by Ellen Ioanes.

American workers set a resignation record

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4.4 million people quit their jobs in September, up from 4.3 million in August. September’s number represents 3 percent of the US workforce, a record rate. [Washington Post/Eli Rosenberg]
• People are leaving their jobs for several reasons, including challenges with child care due to the pandemic, to start businesses of their own, or simply quitting for better pay. The record number of workers quitting — not being fired, laid off, or transferred within the same company — indicates “increasing confidence workers have in securing better-paid jobs elsewhere,” according to Michael Pearce, a senior US economist with Capital Economics. [CBS News / Aimee Picchi]
• The highest number of people quitting were in the arts, entertainment, and leisure sector, with 56,000; the services sector, with 47,000; and public education, with 30,000. Layoffs and firings stayed essentially the same, at 0.9 percent or 1.4 million. [Bureau of Labor Statistics]
• The quit rate at least partially contributes to the continued labor shortage choking multiple points in the supply chain, which has faced increasing snarls throughout the course of the pandemic. [The Hill / Sylvan Lane and Karl Evers-Hillstrom]
• It also speaks to the power of labor, on its back foot for decades, increasingly demanding better conditions, better pay, and better benefits for workers as corporate profits — and inflation — continue to rise. Multiple worker strikes and walkouts earned the last month the moniker “Striketober,” and that could carry on into the future. [NPR / Ailsa Chang, Alejandra Marquez Janse, and Courtney Dorning]
• Despite the staggering number of workers who’ve quit, the economy showed major gains last month, adding 531,000 jobs, mostly in the service industry and manufacturing. [NYT / Nelson D. Schwartz and Talmon Joseph Smith]

Qatari Embassy to represent US in Afghanistan

• The State Department confirmed Friday that Qatar would represent the US’s diplomatic interests in Afghanistan. The American Embassy in Kabul was evacuated in the chaotic pullout in August. [The Hill / Rebecca Beitsch and Sarakshi Rai] 
• Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that he and Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Qatar’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, signed an agreement on Friday establishing Qatar as the US’s “protecting power” in Afghanistan. The US has been reluctant to acknowledge the Taliban government; the new arrangement, which goes into effect December 31, allows the US to conduct certain business, like visa applications, in Afghanistan through Qatar. [Reuters / Humeyra Pamuk and Jonathan Landay]
• Qatar has been an important waypoint for Afghan refugees on their way to the US, hosting thousands of people as their visas and other documentation are processed. The wealthy Gulf nation also hosted talks between the Taliban and the Trump administration. [NYT / Lara Jakes]
• Al-Thani on Friday emphasized the importance of the agreement, saying that Qatar would continue to operate evacuation flights. “We will continue to be an instrument of peace and stability in the region,” he said. [AP / Matthew Lee]

Help keep Sentences free

Former Trump aide Steve Bannon has been indicted by a federal jury for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena regarding his involvement with the January 6 capital riots. [The Hill / Rebecca Beitsch]

• Attorneys have brought 93 lawsuits in the Astroworld festival stampede, suing rapper Travis Scott and the concert promoter Live Nation. [Rolling Stone / Ethan Millman]
• Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order allowing all adults to receive Covid-19 boosters, as cases increase there. [CBS]
• Austria plans to put millions of unvaccinated citizens in lockdown, a move Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said he hoped would be approved this weekend. [CNN / Rob Picheta and Nadine Schmidt]

What was the four-letter name of Paul Bunyan’s blue ox?

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“This is a message to the transit states, the states of origin and the airlines used to bring migrants to Belarus: It must be clear to them that the European Union will not be prepared to accept this any longer.”

[German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to the German Parliament Thursday, on the migrant crisis at the Belarus-Poland border]

How weird expressionist art changed films. [YouTube]

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