For the past decade and a half, the golden rule of American career advice was brutally simple: if you want to make real money, jump ship every two or three years. Job-switchers consistently pocketed raises of 10–20% with each move, while loyal employees limped along with 3–4% annual bumps. The gap was so wide that staying in one place for five years could cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in lifetime earnings. That era appears to be over, at least for now.
Fresh data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s Wage Growth Tracker shows that, as of August 2025, the 12-month rolling median wage growth for job-switchers has fallen to 4.3%—virtually identical to the 4.2% earned by workers who stayed with the same employer. The lines on the chart, which had diverged dramatically since the early 2010s, have kissed for the first time since the pandemic began.
This isn’t the first time the job-hopping premium has evaporated. It happened briefly in 2004, during the slow recovery from the dot-com bust, and again in 2011, when companies were still scarred by the Great Recession and refused to match outside offers. Both times the advantage returned with a vengeance once labor markets tightened. The pattern is clear: when employers feel safe, they stop overpaying new hires and start rewarding tenure again.
Several forces have converged to create today’s reversal.
First, the post-pandemic “Great Resignation” is ancient history. Quit rates, which spiked to record highs in 2021–2022, have fallen back to pre-2020 levels. Workers are no longer flooding the market with résumés, so companies don’t have to bid aggressively to fill seats.
Second, mass layoffs in tech, finance, and media throughout 2023–2025 have left a lingering chill. Even in industries that are hiring again, many professionals watched colleagues get pink slips after aggressive job-hopping and are now prioritizing stability over the next 15% bump. A recent LinkedIn survey found that “job security” has overtaken “higher pay” as the top reason people accept an offer for the first time since tracking began in 2016.
Third, corporate cost-cutting remains in full swing. After years of lavish signing bonuses and equity packages to lure talent during the ZIRP era, finance teams are under pressure to rein in compensation growth. The easiest way to do that is to stop matching inflated external offers. Internal salary bands, once treated as polite suggestions, are being enforced with religious fervor.
Fourth, remote and hybrid work have quietly eroded the traditional leverage of job-hoppers. When everyone is distributed, replacing someone who leaves is often as simple as hiring another remote worker from a lower-cost region or country. Geographic salary arbitrage has never been easier for employers.
Yet history suggests this equilibrium is temporary. The same Atlanta Fed data show that every previous convergence was followed by a sharp divergence once the labor market heated up again. The current slowdown in hiring is concentrated in white-collar sectors that were overhired during the pandemic; blue-collar and healthcare wage growth remains robust, and overall job openings still sit above pre-pandemic levels. Demographic trends are also relentlessly tight: the prime-age labor force is growing at only 0.3% per year, and retirements among boomers continue apace.
Corporate America’s memory is short. The moment revenue growth accelerates and recruiters start complaining about “talent shortages” again - and they will - the bidding wars will resume. Companies that spent 2025 preaching loyalty and internal equity will suddenly discover that their salary bands have an “exception approval” button after all.
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For now, the message to workers is counterintuitive but clear: the fastest way to a raise in late 2025 might be to sit still, build institutional knowledge, and wait for the inevitable pendulum swing. The job-hopping premium isn’t dead; it’s just taking a nap. When it wakes up, the kangaroos will be leaping again.
