You’ve probably heard of quiet quitting, in which workers refuse to do much more than meet the expectations laid out in their job descriptions. That sounds reasonable enough to most employees — and many have argued the term simply means doing your job — but bosses haven’t been too pleased about it.

Managers are agonizing over what an office full of quiet quitters means for productivity, and for some that’s translated into taking on a portion of their employees’ workloads to make up the loss. Four out of 10 managers in Toronto say they’re putting in extra time and effort because staff under the age of 30 are doing less, according to a recent poll conducted by recruiter Robert Walters Canada.

The young professionals pulling back at work say it’s mostly because they aren’t paid enough. As high inflation and the rising cost of living take a bite out of paycheques, many employees assume their employers can and should make up the difference with a hefty raise. But that’s just a pipe dream. Most companies would find it impossible to match the rate of inflation, which came in at 6.9 per cent in September, with wage hikes.

As a result, we’re witnessing a silent war play out between employees and their managers, some of whom are fighting back in their own passive-aggressive way by “quiet firing” the quiet quitters.

Quiet firing subtly freezes out an employee by either avoiding one-on-one conversations, refusing to provide feedback, neglecting to share critical information needed to do a job, passing them over for a promotion or subjecting them to stingy raises — or no raise at all — while co-workers are awarded more.

That may sound pretty extreme, but the practice appears to be more common than you’d think. Most workers say they’ve either experienced it or seen it play out in their workplace, says a recent poll by LinkedIn News. Meanwhile, one in three managers in the United States say they’ve actually gone the “quiet firing” route, according to a poll by Resumebuilder.com.