Hugging conjures friendship, intimacy, support. But lately, it has cropped up in a less warm and fuzzy context: to refer to people clinging anxiously to their jobs in a murky market.<\/p>\n
Workers are quitting at much lower rates<\/a> than they were a few years ago, and are instead \u201cjob hugging.\u201d In August, the consulting firm Korn Ferry used the term<\/a> in an article to describe the way workers have been \u201cholding on to their jobs for dear life.\u201d A spokesman wrote in an email that the firm might have coined the phrase but that he couldn\u2019t say for sure. Since then, it has popped up in several<\/a> news<\/a> articles<\/a> and even on \u201cThe Daily Show<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The term is striking a nerve partly because it represents a sharp reversal from the \u201cgreat resignation<\/a>\u201d period of 2021 and 2022, when tens of millions of Americans quit their jobs. At the time, the labor market was hot, after a steep decline in employment at the start of the pandemic.<\/p>\n How it\u2019s pronounced<\/p>\n \/j\u00e4b h\u0259g-i\u014b\/<\/p>\n But the market has again cooled significantly. Employers added a measly 22,000 jobs in August, according to the latest federal data<\/a>. In June, the U.S. economy lost 13,000 jobs, its first dip since December 2020, according to revised data. Hiring is down in many industries. Unemployment, though low overall, is hitting recent college graduates<\/a> hard.<\/p>\n The job market is filled with distressing signals and uncertainty. Tariffs<\/a> are hobbling companies. Immigration raids are decimating the work forces of some industries<\/a> and igniting fear in communities. Artificial intelligence is spooking everyone (though Yale researchers<\/a> found that so far, few workers have been displaced by A.I.). Quits reflect workers\u2019 confidence \u2014 and at the moment, they do not seem particularly confident.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless you have a better option, quitting a job in risky times is a huge gamble,\u201d Nick Bloom, an economist at Stanford, said in an email.<\/p>\n When they can\u2019t quit, employees may end up feeling stuck in place, which can stunt their career development, said Peter Cappelli, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. The situation can also hurt their financial health because job hoppers tend to get higher raises<\/a>.<\/p>\n For the most part, workers leave jobs once they have secured a better opportunity. \u201cAlmost nobody quits and then pouts and goes home and then thinks, \u2018Gee, what am I going to do next?\u2019\u201d Dr. Cappelli said. But when workers don\u2019t leave, other people can\u2019t fill those roles, stalling movement in the job market.<\/p>\n Though worker turnover is expensive for employers, having a team of stressed employees who don\u2019t want to be there isn\u2019t ideal, either. \u201cChurn\u201d is a bad word among bosses, but some amount of it can be healthy.<\/p>\n On paper, this job market is more \u201cnormal\u201d than the overheated one of the early 2020s. Still, many of the dynamics today \u2014 the Trump administration\u2019s immigration offensive, the hyped-up A.I. market, the psychic scars of the early pandemic shutdowns and the years of scarce labor that followed \u2014 make for an uneasy time.<\/p>\n Stressed-out workers may find comfort in embracing a loved one amid the uncertainty. A job, for all the stability it provides, cannot hug you back.<\/p>\n