Job hugging is the new job hopping
Job-hugging is a new form of job-hopping due to the slowdown in the labor market.
America is becoming a nation of pessimistic workers.
For the first time, more workers in a Gallup poll have negative views about their future. A Gallup poll of U.S. workers conducted between Oct. 30 and Nov. 13 found that even though many indicators point to a relatively strong economy, more workers report struggling than thriving.
This is a stunning reversal from 2022 and 2023, when more than half of employees had positive outlooks.
As a life evaluation index, Gallup asked people to imagine a ladder with the lowest rung representing the worst possible life and the highest rung representing the best possible life. These horizontal lines are numbered from 0 to 10.
Gallup classified people as thriving if they rated their current lives as a 7 or above and their expected lives in five years as an 8 or above, said Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief scientist for workplace management and well-being. People who rate their current life and future life as a 4 or lower are classified as suffering.
“People who are neither suffering nor thriving are considered to be struggling,” he says.
What’s behind the dark thinking?
America’s unemployment rate may be low, but so is job growth. And the slowing pace of hiring, the weakest labor market in years, has many workers feeling anxious.
Recession mood is building as job market confidence has fallen to near historic lows, with just 28% of workers saying now is a good time to find a good job, down from nearly 70% in mid-2022, according to a Gallup poll. The study called the 42-point drop “the largest collapse in job market confidence recorded by Gallup over the past four years.”
Restless workers are feeling stuck because they can’t find comparable roles with the same pay and benefits, Harter said.
Approximately 30% of all employees agreed or strongly agreed that they feel “stuck” in their current job. A larger proportion (43%) said they would stay in their current role primarily because it would be too difficult or expensive to leave.
People who have jobs are holding onto jobs even though they don’t want them, while people who want jobs are having a hard time finding them.
“Employees have fewer options for what they define as high-quality jobs,” Harter told USA TODAY. “Very few people who apply are getting the chance.”
These challenging market conditions show little sign of easing. Social media is filled with images of frustrated job seekers submitting hundreds of applications and never hearing back, and overqualified candidates desperately tossing their resumes for entry-level positions.
“The job market is really tough,” one job seeker commented on LinkedIn. “I applied for a lot of jobs and got nothing. I don’t remember ever finding a job this hard.”
“What makes this moment stand out is not just the scale of the grievances, but the circumstances surrounding them,” Gallup said. “Many workers who want to retire are unable to do so because of constraints such as economic conditions, a cooling labor market, and the difficulty of finding anything comparable to what they have.”
desperately looking for a new job
Anxious job seekers are not discouraged. “Intention to leave” remains at the highest level since Gallup began its survey in 2015.
According to Gallup, more than half of workers are actively looking for a new job and 40% are looking for better opportunities. Less than half of U.S. employees say they never watch it.
However, with limited opportunities, almost half of current job seekers say it was a negative experience. Just over a quarter of respondents said they had a positive experience during their job search.
More than half of job seekers who applied for at least one job in the past 30 days report that they never got an interview.
Which workers are the most pessimistic?
Federal employees in particular are experiencing a reversal of fortune.
According to Gallup, federal employees are significantly more likely to succeed in 2022 than the average U.S. worker, 4 percentage points higher than the average state and local government employee and 6 percentage points higher than the average U.S. worker.
By 2025, the prosperity rate for federal employees has fallen 12 percentage points to an average of 48%, far outpacing the sharp decline in state and local government jobs and the average for all employees.
“Starting in 2022, all major segments of the U.S. workforce have experienced worsening life prospects, but federal employees stand out for the depth and speed of that decline,” Gallup said.
Employment anxiety among university graduate workers
For the first time in the past three years, college-educated workers are the least optimistic about the job market, likely reflecting slower hiring in white-collar fields and layoffs in professional jobs, according to Gallup.
This rise in pessimism is a new phenomenon. Until 2024, workers with an undergraduate degree or higher were slightly more optimistic about the job market, according to Gallup. Only 19% of workers with a college degree say now is a good time to find a good job, far less than the 35% of workers without a college degree.
Today’s younger workers are also more pessimistic about the job market than older workers.
Do you want happy workers? show them the money
According to a Gallup survey, pay or benefits are the top reason for job hunting, with 69% of workers looking for a better job and 53% of dissatisfied workers responding.
More opportunities for growth and advancement were the second most cited reason, but more than a quarter of respondents blamed leadership and management for their wandering eyes.
Overall wage growth has slowed for years, a knock-on effect of a tight job market.
The average employer plans to raise wages by 3.5% in 2026, barely keeping up with inflation, according to an October survey from human resources firm Mercer.
Over the years, job hoppers have been able to earn higher salaries in new roles. But that strategy has been losing momentum for some time. And if the number of job openings decreases, the chances of changing jobs will also decrease.
According to ZipRecruiter, only 56% of workers negotiated a pay increase in their new role, down from 70% in 2023. Additionally, a quarter of those who recently started a new job received a pay cut, and a further 16% received the same salary. For many who accepted lower wages, unemployment drove the decision.
