Oct. 29—You can go back to the place you quit working at months ago.

Last summer, a worker assembling heating sensors for automobiles left her job for higher pay at a different company.

Next month, she will be back at her old employer, Eichenauer in Newport, working part-time while keeping the three 12-hour days at her current job.

"On day one, she can sit at an assembly table and start making parts for us," Eichenauer human relations manager Wendy Hilliard said during an interview at a virtual job fair this month.

"She doesn't have to undergo training or ramp up to meet productivity goals," Hilliard said. "We're happy to have her."

The pandemic's upended labor market has led many workers to leave jobs for more money or better opportunities. Some have had second thoughts about their departures, creating a new term to follow the Great Resignation.

Call it the Great Regret.

Some companies have created rules regarding boomeranging employees.

"We do have a policy," said Monica Alfred, a recruiter at Driveline Retail Merchandising.

"You will have six months to come back."

An employee's return is subject to approval from Driveline's human-resources department, which deploys workers to restock store shelves and put up promotional displays. Last week, the company had jobs available in seven territories across the state, including Manchester.

Driveline has hired back workers who left for higher pay but found they were given fewer hours over time, leading them to return to their old jobs.

"It's harder to hire people, so don't let the talent out the door," said Barry Roy, regional president at Robert Half, a staffing agency with three New Hampshire offices. "Try to save them."

Companies "sometimes don't have a choice" but to rehire them, he said.

Before leaping, disgruntled workers should try to get what they're looking for from their current boss.

"The mistake that job seekers make is not talking to their current company" before they quit, Roy said.

Employers sometimes will offer more money or a quicker advancement track to prevent a valuable employee from leaving, Roy said.

Fear of layoffs

Many who jumped to new jobs said they were concerned about future layoffs, according to a national survey by Bankrate.

More than half of them said they were worried about their job security, compared to 28% who stayed at their employer and got a pay raise.

About 2 in 5 American workers said they felt worried about job security, whether they switched employers or not, according to the survey.

There are these "looming storm clouds with at least layoffs (in the news) catching people's attention and making them feel they may not have as many options," Bankrate analyst Sarah Foster said in a phone interview.

"It's the perception that can often become our reality," she said.

But a recession now may not be as harsh on job seekers as other economic downturns of the past two decades.

"The fact a lot of economists are forecasting you can still have job openings in a downturn suggests job seekers could still be in a relatively good position if we were to face a recession," Foster said.

Roy thinks job seekers will continue to have the upper hand for the foreseeable future.

"There's definitely no shortage of jobs out there as of right now," he said.

Take David Ehmann of Laconia.

The 50-something physical therapist received two job offers in his first two weeks of job hunting and expected to accept one for "a little more" money than his previous job.

He attended a job fair last week just in case something better popped up.

"I haven't looked for a job in 20 years," Ehmann said. "I'm a little rusty."

No full jobs recovery

The state hasn't yet regained all the jobs lost during the pandemic, which caused widespread layoffs beginning in March 2020.

"Again, we are still down about 5,000 employed individuals compared to the all-time high back in November 2019, so we want to see more people actively looking (for jobs) like the numbers show for September," said Rich Lavers, deputy commissioner for Employment Security.

There were more than 1,000 more people looking for work in September than in August.

"It is still an incredibly competitive labor market favoring the job seeker, but bringing back over 1,000 people that are looking for work is a testament to the strength of the New Hampshire economy," he said this month.

Fewer people are quitting their jobs compared to late last year.

Last November, New Hampshire tied with Georgia for the nation's highest quitting rate, 4.5%. By August, that number dropped to 2.8% in New Hampshire, slightly higher than the national average of 2.7%, according to federal figures.

"I think the pandemic and the Great Resignation definitely gave people permission to walk away from something they didn't enjoy," Hilliard said.

More pay for job-jumping

New Hampshire workers who left their jobs for new employers sometime between April 2021 and June 2021 earned more on average than if they had stayed at their previous jobs, according to Greg David, an economist with the state Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau.

The earning difference "increased dramatically during the Great Resignation" from about 4% between 2018 and 2020 to 31% during the second quarter of 2021, David wrote in a September report on the resignation trend and the growth in worker earnings.

"Workers aged 25 to 44 hired to stable employment (meaning working three straight months) may have received the largest benefits from changing employers during the Great Resignation," David wrote.

New hires in that age group made an average 31% more than the workers who left their jobs, David wrote.

Not all people leaving jobs found new ones, as some people dropped out of the labor force or simply retired, he said in a brief interview.

Roy said a few things motivate people to change jobs.

"Money is definitely the big driver for people to leave" for a new job, followed by career advancement and the ability to work remotely, he said.

Christina Broyer, a talent acquisition specialist at Riverbend Community Mental Health in Concord, hoped she could find people at a recent virtual job fair to fill some of their three-dozen job openings.

Broyer finds some job seekers regret leaving their old jobs.

"They think the grass is greener, and it isn't always so," Broyer said.

What's Working, a series exploring solutions for New Hampshire's workforce needs, is sponsored by the New Hampshire Solutions Journalism Lab at the Nackey S. Loeb School of Communications and is funded by Eversource, Fidelity Investments, the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, the New Hampshire College & University Council, Northeast Delta Dental and the New Hampshire Coalition for Business and Education. Contact reporter Michael Cousineau at mcousineau@unionleader.com. To read stories in the series, visit unionleader.com/whatsworking.