/biz/ - Business & Finance

>”We need to see unemployment rise," he said. "Unemployment has to jump 40, 50% in my view. We need to see pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around."

"I think the problem that we've had is that people decided they didn't really want to work so much anymore through COVID," Gurner said. "They have been paid a lot to do not too much in the last few years, and we need to see that change."

Gurner said the key to curbing what he views as "arrogance" in the labor market is higher unemployment.

"We need to see unemployment rise," he said. "Unemployment has to jump 40, 50% in my view. We need to see pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around."

In recent years, a tight labor market empowered workers to ask for more at work, like better pay and working conditions. But some leaders, like Gurner, have been fighting back. Mandating workers return to office, for example, has become a favorite way for some to regain power.

"There's been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them, as opposed to the other way around," he added. "We've got to kill that attitude and that has to come through hurting the economy."