Trevor Noah: ‘The pandemic has given people a million reasons to quit their jobs’

Trevor Noah

On Thursday’s Daily Show, Trevor Noah discussed what some are calling the Great Resignation: American workers quitting their jobs – in retail, education, food industry and beyond – in the wake of the pandemic.

There isn’t one reason people are leaving their jobs en masse – “the pandemic has given people a million reasons to quit their jobs,” said Noah, including demands for better pay, better working conditions and more flexible working arrangements to handle childcare and eldercare responsibilities. Some workers fear Covid transmission, and others don’t wish to return to the office after a year-plus of working from home.

“For companies that had people work from home during the pandemic, everything seemed fine. They kept making money, they kept making a profit, which really made a lot of people wonder what the point of coming back into the office is,” said Noah.

“Like, why sit in two hours of traffic to then sit at a computer that has the same internet as my computer at home? Except everyone here can see I’m looking at porn.”

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Some people have also simply reprioritized the importance of career in their lives after a collectively traumatic experience. “Obviously, most people won’t or can’t leave their jobs. So these quitters are a very small minority,” Noah explained.

“But these quitters are still having a broader impact. Because with so many workers willing to leave their jobs, companies are forced to make the jobs more appealing.”

REI, the apparel company, closed down its headquarters in favor of satellite offices, while companies such as Nike, Kickstarter and Bumble gave employees a week off to recharge.

“It’s great that companies are starting to be a little more flexible,” said Noah. But “what sort of sucks about this thing is how it’s all the white-collar jobs that are getting more flexible.

“Because I know that anyone in any job can get burned out, but I would love to see the staffs of Kickstarter and Bumble explain how burnt out they are to a group of coalminers in, like, West Virginia.”

Seth Meyers

On Late Night, Seth Meyers checked in on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who’s been “busy spitballing batshit conspiracy theories with the pillow dingus [MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell]” while obstructing the congressional investigation into the 6 January insurrection. After defying a subpoena to testify before Congress, the House committee is moving to hold him in criminal contempt.

“So they might arrest Steve Bannon again?” Meyers marveled. “Bannon already looks like he got pulled out of bed in the middle of the night by US marshals. I feel like if they kicked in his door they’d take one look at him and say, ‘Oh is someone here already?’

“Bannon already got arrested once and pardoned by Trump, although from looking at him, you’d think he’d escaped Shawshank-style,” he added.

“If the feds are looking for Bannon, I can tell you where to find him: he looks like the dude illegally selling pet iguanas on the boardwalk at Venice Beach.”

Meanwhile, Trump is still peddling his big lie of a stolen election, and trying to instruct Republicans not to vote unless their representatives take up his baseless and repeatedly disproven claims. As he said in a statement released on Wednesday: “If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020 (which we have thoroughly and conclusively documented), Republicans will not be voting in 22 or 24.”

“I do like that Trump is constantly making life difficult for Republicans who just want to use him to win power,” Meyers said. “Sorry you guys bought a ticket on this train, Rick, and now you can’t get off.”

Jimmy Kimmel

And in Los Angeles, Jimmy Kimmel blitzed through a series of ridiculous statements from Trump acolytes such as former adviser Kellyanne Conway, who “crawled out of the toilet last night” to claim on Fox News that “President Trump’s administration, Operation Warp Speed, handed over three approved vaccines to Biden-Harris. All they had to do was run a marketing campaign – we did the science part.”

“She’s still got it,” Kimmel deadpanned. “I guess she forgot the part where her boss told everyone to drink bleach and not worry about it.

“Meanwhile, the angry orange baby is throwing another fit over the election he can’t admit he lost,” Kimmel continued, pointing to the former president’s statement instructing Republicans not to vote in 2022 or 2024.

“Did Nancy Pelosi write this for him? It seems like he’s telling Republicans not to vote,” he wondered. “And, of course, this brings up the age-old question, which is: how do you solve a problem you made up?”