Forget quiet quitting. The latest trend for British workers is “job hugging” for fearful employees who are prioritising security over ambition as confidence drains from the labour market.
Pay growth is near a four-year low and companies are shedding workers at the fastest pace since the pandemic leading more than 55 per cent of employees surveyed to say that they were focused on clinging to the job they had. The sentiment was particularly high among younger workers: 65 per cent of those aged 18 to 34 planned to stay put in their existing roles rather than seek new jobs.
Other research has suggested that the UK recruitment market was slowing down, as employers warned of uncertainty about the autumn budget in November and the effect of higher payroll taxes.
Kevin Fitzgerald, UK managing director for the recruitment company Employment Hero, which conducted the research, including a YouGov survey of 3,635 workers, said “job hugging” was on the rise “as employees look to weather the storm”.
He added that tax changes had “knocked confidence” and said: “The rise in employer national insurance contributions has had a ripple effect right across the economy and we’re now at a critical juncture. As we head towards the autumn budget, avoiding more tax changes that trigger knee-jerk reactions from businesses will be vital if we want to build on the early signs of recovery.”
Nina Skero, chief executive of the Centre for Economics and Business Research consultancy, said the data indicated that workers were concerned about their ability to secure new employment quickly. “Workers are facing a difficult balancing act: while pay growth remains strong, inflation continues to eat into real wages and job opportunities are thinning out,” she said.
HM Revenue & Customs says payrolled employment has shrunk by more than 160,000 since October’s budget, when the £25 billion national insurance raid on businesses was announced, and the redundancies were concentrated in the retail and hospitality sectors.
Lloyds Banking Group said last week that it was sharpening its focus on a “high-performance culture” in which the 5 per cent of weakest-performing workers were to be told that their jobs were at risk unless their work improved.