Work and employment advice: Staff are sticking around
An interesting trend is happening in the job market right now. In previous years, employees often jumped from job to job, seeking better conditions and higher titles as they climbed the career ladder. But now we’re starting to see the opposite, with workers staying in their jobs longer.
This is called “job clinging”, where people prefer stability and security to changing roles, and it’s one of the first signs of a nervous market.
Instead of finding new, more satisfying work, workers stay there, often to their own detriment.Credit: Chris Hopkins
If a role has already passed its expiration date, or if you keep telling yourself that things will get better one day, you’re probably holding on too tightly to your job.
Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that only 7.7 per cent of workers – or 1.1 million people – changed jobs last year, down from a 10-year high of 9.6 per cent reached in 2023. One in 10 Australians have been in their current job for more than 20 years.
Some of the reasons for staying put may be as simple as you enjoy doing what you do and don’t feel the need for any changes, but there are increasing external factors that explain why people choose not to move anywhere.
Australia has a tough recruitment market alongside rising costs of living and slowing wage growth; This means that the uncertainty of finding a new job with similar pay is a strong motivator to keep at it.
As comfortable as it is to repeat the same familiar work routine over and over again, the negative aspects often outweigh the positives.
There is well-documented and growing concern around the world about how AI will impact our workplaces, and this uneasiness about job prospects is causing many people to second-guess what might happen when they leave the security of what they know.
If you’ve reached the point in your career where you’re now considering changing jobs, you need to weigh the benefits and costs of staying where you are.
