{"id":935215,"date":"2026-10-16T13:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T13:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/935215\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T13:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T13:26:13","slug":"job-switching-used-to-be-one-of-the-best-defenses-against-inflation-that-advantage-is-disappearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/935215\/","title":{"rendered":"Job-switching used to be one of the best defenses against inflation. That advantage is disappearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n In years past, when Shannon Ratcliff switched jobs, she often got more than career advancement \u2014 she got a nice little pay bump.\n <\/p>\n

\n But this year, her new job came with a $20,000 pay cut.\n <\/p>\n

\n The job is a great opportunity, she said, and she\u2019s hoping to advance and close that financial gap. However, the salary drop-off is still tough to stomach for her family of five at a time when prices are rising faster than normal.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cEverything is getting more expensive, but the amount of money we bring home is less and less,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n The US labor market has lost some of its oomph, leaving workers like Ratcliff with less leverage to boost their income and keep pace with inflation: the pay premium for switching jobs.\n <\/p>\n

\n Pair that with five years of stubborn inflation, and workers are losing even more ground.\n <\/p>\n

\n In September, the median increase in base pay for job changers was 4.8% versus 3% for job stayers, according to data from payroll giant ADP.\n <\/p>\n

\n That gap has not surpassed 2 percentage points for nearly two years. For context, it was north of 7 percentage points during the post-pandemic jobs boom and sat comfortably above 3.5 percentage points pre-pandemic.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cSwitching a job gives you a one-time burst, but it still is not enough to keep up long term with inflation at the levels we\u2019re seeing now,\u201d said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP.\n <\/p>\n

\n Last month, overall inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index rose at an annual rate of 3.7%. Job switchers aren\u2019t seeing their pay gains completely eroded by inflation, but they don\u2019t have the breathing room that they once did (pre-pandemic, that difference was roughly 5 percentage points).\n <\/p>\n

\n Dynamism is an important ingredient in a healthy labor market (and healthy economy, for that matter).\n <\/p>\n

\n The ability for employees to find the best opportunities for themselves and for employers to find the best candidates for the job help to drive innovation, which drives productivity, which drives growth, Richardson has said.\n <\/p>\n

\n But instead, the labor market has been in a period of relative stasis, turnover data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.\n <\/p>\n

\n The hires rate (hiring as a percentage of total employment), an indicator of labor demand, has plodded along at decade-low levels, excluding the pandemic. The quits rate, which represents workers\u2019 confidence in their ability to find a new job, remains near a six-year low.\n <\/p>\n

\n Job growth last year was one of the weakest on record. Employment gains have picked up this year, with the economy adding 68,000 per month versus fewer than 10,000 per month in 2025. However, they remain well below historical averages, BLS data shows.\n <\/p>\n

\n Hiring has been stunted by a combination of factors including pervasive uncertainty, a shrinking labor supply, higher oil prices, geopolitical uncertainty, stubborn inflation, rising borrowing costs, and the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence technologies<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n That has left workers increasingly worried about their job security: In September, Glassdoor\u2019s Employee Confidence Index fell to a new record low<\/a> \u2013 its third such nadir in 2026 for the 10-year-old index.\n <\/p>\n

\n The bottom-barrel sentiment also reflects a buildup of workers having to endure six years filled with crises, including a global pandemic, Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor said at the time of the report\u2019s release in late September.\n <\/p>\n

\n The process of switching jobs has never been a costless endeavor, Richardson said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cYou have to update your resume; you\u2019ve got to get on a [job posting site]; you\u2019ve got to do multiple interviews, which may mean taking personal days,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cBut particularly in a low-hire, low-fire labor market, it takes longer when employers are being selective.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Commuters<\/p>\n

\n That\u2019s especially true when the labor market waters are choppy.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIs a 2% (pay bump) worth it for all the other stuff you have to do to get onboarded? Is 3% worth it?,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can certainly say 16% is worth it, but there\u2019s got to be a de minimis in which \u2018I might just stay where I am in this slightly volatile, I\u2019m not sure what\u2019s going to happen\u2019 economy. Sticking with the same employer seems to be what people are generally doing.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Shannon Ratcliff\u2019s job search took six months and six days \u2013 roughly the national average, BLS data shows \u2013 after being laid off in early December last year. Having little luck in getting interviews for finance and accounting positions, Ratcliff pivoted to human resources and obtained certifications in the process, which helped her land the role she has today.\n <\/p>\n

\n For Jorena Collins, a senior technical writer in Colorado, a \u201cbrutal\u201d nine-month job hunt ended with a contract position that pays about half of what she made two years ago.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019ve built a career from nothing twice now, but the market isn\u2019t what it was; and it\u2019s honestly been very discouraging,\u201d she wrote to CNN in response to a callout on job-switching.\n <\/p>\n

\n For her first career, Collins had worked her way through college to obtain a degree in physics that afforded her opportunities as an engineer. After stepping away from the workforce to raise her children, the gap limited her engineering opportunities, and so she rebuilt her career as a technical writer.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI worked my way up through some of the biggest names in tech and eventually earned more than I ever had as an engineer,\u201d she wrote. \u201cThat was a couple of years ago. Now with AI taking on more of the technical writing, it\u2019s been difficult to find work.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In a follow-up phone interview, Collins talked further about the toll taken.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe last nine months have been just nerve-wracking,\u201d she said, as some emotion hit her voice. During that time, some medical bills had accumulated, and she\u2019s now in a place where she\u2019s making too much for Medicaid but not enough for insurance.\n <\/p>\n

\n She said she\u2019s grateful for the position she\u2019s found, especially as her field \u2013 and many others \u2013 is being reshaped by the adoption of AI, yet another force that job seekers have to contend with when looking for new roles.\n <\/p>\n

\n Collins, who uses AI in her personal and work environments, said she sees great potential from it but added that the technology needs more governance and guardrails to protect against any dangers as well as to handle the fallout of job loss.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think the whole world is going to be in the same position. I think I\u2019m being affected first. I think we\u2019ll get better at switching (jobs) as the world changes \u2013 and adapting,\u201d she said. \u201cBut right now, it\u2019s difficult to try and guess what job might last a few years before AI takes over.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In years past, when Shannon Ratcliff switched jobs, she often got more than career advancement \u2014 she got…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":935216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-935215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/935216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}