For the first time in over a decade, staying put pays better than leaving.
In August 2025, Americans who switched jobs saw their median wage rise just 4.2% over the previous year. Those who stayed with the same employer? 4.3%. The “switcher premium” that once lured millions to new badges and bigger paychecks has collapsed to 0.1 percentage point, the smallest gap since the Great Recession and a dramatic comedown from the 2.2-point bonus workers enjoyed in early 2022.
The era of easy money from job-hopping is officially dead.
The Coldest Labor Market Since the Pandemic
The numbers paint a picture of caution bordering on fear.
Voluntary quits, the classic “take this job and shove it” metric, dropped to 1.9% of the workforce in August 2025, the lowest rate outside the pandemic lockdown months since 2015. Rehire rates for the unemployed, the share of jobless people who actually land a new position each month, fell to 19.8% in September, the weakest since 2021. Meanwhile, announced layoffs spiked to their highest October total since the dot-com bust in 2003, with Amazon, UPS, Target, Microsoft, Citigroup, and Stellantis among the biggest names slashing headcount.
Hiring has quietly frozen over. Private-sector job openings per unemployed worker slipped to 1.1 in September 2025, down from a peak of 2.0 in 2022 and the lowest since mid-2021. Companies are no longer racing to fill seats; they’re hoarding cash and squeezing existing staff.
The Switcher Premium Vanishes
For two decades, changing jobs was the single most reliable way for American workers to outrun inflation. From 2001 to 2021, switchers consistently earned 1–3 percentage points more annual wage growth than stayers. The pandemic supercharged that gap to nearly 5 points in 2021–2022 as companies threw money at anyone willing to jump ship.
Now the script has flipped.
Atlanta Fed data show that since mid-2024, stayers have out-earned switchers in eight of the past fourteen months. In industries hit hardest by the slowdown, retail, tech, logistics, the penalty for leaving can be brutal. Workers who changed jobs in warehousing and transportation in 2025 actually saw median real wages fall by 1.4% after inflation, while stayers gained 0.8%.
Why Workers Are Clinging to Their Desks
1. Scarcity of better options
Job-to-job moves peaked at 4.2 million per month in early 2022. By mid-2025 they had fallen below 3 million for the first time since 2017.
2. Layoff anxiety
The Challenger layoff announcement tracker hit 93,000 in October 2025 alone, the highest October reading since 2008. When headlines scream cuts at Meta (11,000 more in November 2025), Boeing (10% of workforce), and even previously untouchable firms like Disney and Nike, the grass starts looking a lot less green anywhere else.
3. Vanishing signing bonuses and equity grants
The median signing bonus for tech roles collapsed from $25,000 in 2022 to under $8,000 in 2025. Stock grants, once a golden handcuff for staying, are being clawed back or heavily discounted in new offers.
4. The return of “quiet loyalty”
Eagle Hill Consulting’s latest retention index hit an all-time high in Q3 2025, with employees suddenly praising company culture, leadership trust, and work-life balance they mocked just two years ago. When the outside market looks like a minefield, even a mediocre boss starts to seem tolerable.
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The Bigger Picture
This isn’t just cyclical caution; it’s a structural reset.
The Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hikes finally bit: real GDP growth slowed to 1.4% annualized in Q3 2025, corporate profit margins are shrinking, and CEOs are under pressure to show cost discipline. Remote-work arbitrage, the ability to job-hop to a fully remote role with a 30% raise, has largely evaporated as return-to-office mandates spread.
For younger workers especially, the consequences are stark. Millennials and Gen-Z entered the workforce during the “Great Resignation” and learned that loyalty was for suckers. Now they’re discovering the opposite: in a cooling economy, the safest career move is often no move at all.
America’s labor market has gone from musical chairs to freeze tag. And right now, nobody dares to move.
