You're hired! Oh wait...
  Dave here in for Allison, who told me she is getting "a well-deserved day off." I'll let you be the judge of that. Let's get into it. 😬 WE'RE HIRING! ...OH, WAIT  Live look at America's hiring efforts
"Take this job and shove it."
That's the message America's workers are sending to their bosses. With a historically high number of job openings (nearly 11 million at the end of last year), a record number of people are quitting and searching for greener pastures.
Literally. As in, millions of Americans would rather stay home to admire their backyards than to go back to their crappy jobs.
When the New York Times' Kara Swisher recently interviewed newly retired Disney CEO Bob Iger, the famously grounded and in-touch business leader asked why Swisher thought so many people were quitting and not coming back.
"Tell me what is going on there," Iger said. "Why don't people want to work?"
"Because some jobs suck, and they're sick of it," Swisher said.
THE GREAT UPGRADE
We all have dreams of going all "Half Baked" on our jobs, and millions are doing just that, minus the cursing. A combination of Covid, padded savings accounts and a strong desire for a lifestyle change has led 1.7 million people to quit without anything in the pipeline, according to Goldman Sachs.
The bank's economists expect 1 million people from that group will come back to work this year. But they're not going to do it for the same lousy pay, benefits and schedule they had before. They're demanding better. And desperate employers are ponying up.
That's why my colleague Christine Romans wrote today "The Great Resignation" doesn't do the job market situation justice. It's really "The Great Upgrade."
NOT GREAT FOR EVERYONE
The news is especially good for leisure and hospitality workers who got a 2% raise last year, even when adjusting for 2021's massive inflation. Servers and other people in low-paying customer service jobs are especially fed up, and employers are boosting pay and benefits to attract (and retain) talent.
Not everyone is so lucky. Wholesale trade sector workers, such as truck drivers, saw a 0.1% bump in pay, after adjusting for inflation, over the time period. And employees in the utilities sector ended up taking a pay cut because of sky-high inflation. Their paychecks shrank 1.5% during the pandemic. Workers in the financial activities sector, which includes tellers, financial loan officers, real estate sales agents and property managers, saw a 1% decline in real wages, my colleague Tami Luhby writes.
America's workers just can't catch a break.... #️⃣ NUMBER OF THE DAY $1.13 million Ah, nature is healing: New York City real estate prices were near record highs last year, and sales were stronger than they've been in more than three decades. In Manhattan, the median sales price for a condo or co-op in 2021 rose 7% from the year before to $1.13 million, according to a report from brokerage firm Douglas Elliman and appraiser Miller Samuel. That was the second-highest price in the report's 32-year history, and just below the peak of $1.14 million hit in 2017.
🛒 KIRKLAND SIGNATURE NEWSLETTER  Ever wonder why everything at Costco is called "Kirkland Signature"?
Apparently, the answer is: It sounded a lot better than "Issaquah Signature," which no one could spell, anyway.
Costco's house brand is ubiquitous -- it's one of the only private labels that's used for literally every product the store makes. You can put Kirkland Signature toilet paper alongside Kirkland Signature cashews in your shopping cart.
It wasn't always that way, my colleague Nathaniel Meyerson reports. If you shopped at Costco in the United States three decades ago, you'd find about 30 different Costco private-label brands alongside the big-name food and household staples' lines. There was Simply Soda. Chelsea toilet paper. Ballantrae wine. Clout detergent. Nutra Nuggets dog food.
But the company in 1995 wanted to simplify. Jim Sinegal, Costco's co-founder, said in 2019 that the company was in so many places around the world, it needed an army of trademark attorneys to keep the private-label brands going. So he put it to his team, and someone floated Kirkland Signature, a spin on the location of the company's Washington State headquarters.
Although Costco soon moved its headquarters to nearby Issaquah, the Kirkland name stuck.
MY TWO CENTS
I will buy private label brands for pretty much everything. But you will pry the Charmin out of my cold, dead hands.
WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON? ✈️ Spirit and Frontier Airlines announced a $6.6 billion merger that would create the fifth-largest airline in the United States. And the most-complained about: Passengers may like their low fares, but they do not like flying Spirit or Frontier. They had the industry's worst customer satisfaction ratings, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
🚳 Peloton's stock surged Monday following reports that Amazon and Nike are exploring bids for the company. One analyst has also suggested Apple as a possible suitor. Maybe. But Peloton's management has a firm grip on the company's shares and could easily fend off any barbarians at the gate, Cowen analysts note.
🎙️ Joe Rogan still has a job, even after a compilation of the podcaster using the n-word more than 20 times on his podcast spread widely on social media. Rogan apologized, and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek condemned Rogan's use of the racial slur. But Ek said Rogan will get to keep his job, saying he won't be "silenced." TWEET OF THE DAY 
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