They’re ambitious, motivated, and want to make a career move. But in this economy? They’re staying put.
That’s the circumstance 23-year-old Claire, who works in marketing at a local tech firm, currently finds herself in.
The gig helped her move to Boston after college and become financially independent, she said, but the pay isn’t great. She’d like to look for something better, but doesn’t see many opportunities. So, as she’s not confident it’s smart to make a move right now, she’s “holding onto this job tight.”
“I think people feel the grind right now pretty heavily and the energy of corporate America is pretty depressing,” said Claire, who asked to be identified only by her middle name to protect her privacy from her employer. “People are all a little nervous and unsure of where the economy is headed. . . . Everyone in their jobs is a little more stressed than they should be.”
Trend-watchers looking to make sense of this particular moment in the job market have dubbed workers such as Claire “job-huggers,” people who are clinging to their current roles while riding out an uncertain economy. Like the Great Resignation, and “quiet quitting,” job-hugging is the latest manifestation of a post-pandemic labor market that isn’t quite like what came before it.
But this round of work-related anxiety runs far deeper, and reflects several big shifts all playing out at once: federal policy upending key local industries such as health care and higher education; the threat of AI; and companies reasserting their authority after a burst of worker activism during the pandemic.
From a peak in March 2022, companies have slowed their hiring over the past three years. They also aren’t as willing to pony up big salaries to recruit workers as they did during the pandemic, and workers are increasingly willing to earn less to stay employed. A reemphasis on in-person work is also limiting the talent pool, as people don’t want to move for a position, only to then be the first one let go.
Add in tariff angst, government shutdown concerns, and ever-rising costs and the result is a workforce that feels more apprehensive than it’s been in years.
“I’d be fearful to make a move right now,” Claire said. “Going into a new position and going into the bottom of the ladder would mean I’m more at risk.”
Those qualms are being felt throughout industries, as evidenced by survey after survey that finds a workforce that’s beset with stress. In August, the New York Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Expectations hit a record low, with just 44.9 percent of respondents saying they were confident they could move from one job to the next.
And just this week, a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found that 47 percent of US adults are “not very” or “not at all” confident they could find a good job if they wanted to, up from 37 percent in October 2023.
Many of these insecurities are still hovering below the surface, and not yet well reflected in the jobs data: US job growth has slowed, for example, but employment figures haven’t yet turned negative.
But this uncertainty — whether real or imagined — is creating a sense of stasis in the economy that can have major repercussions for workers all along the corporate ladder. If the marketing talent in other positions around Boston all hug their jobs, that means Claire and others like her in the field may have to stay longer in a lower-paying position.
And that’s likely to hurt the broader economy, said David Blanchflower, a labor economist at Dartmouth College, who has recently found profound job dissatisfaction among the youngest workers in the labor pool. The findings stretch back over a decade, he notes, so he doesn’t think the pandemic or AI is to blame. Rather, he believes there’s a growing distrust in the promise of work, and the idea that you can build a career and a better life.
“Gen Z is pessimistic about a rigged system,” he said.
That’s a sentiment that resonates with workers such as Kayleigh Shuler, who at 30 is just a tad older than Gen Z. She entered the job market later than her peers, and until recently believed she was making corporate America work for her.
For the past four years, Shuler’s been a barista at Starbucks, using the company’s tuition reimbursement program to take online classes at Arizona State University. She and her fiancé, Joss Nelson, a 20-year Starbucks veteran, had been helping organize a union at their Coolidge Corner shop. And earlier this year, when the couple learned they were expecting, they felt excited that they’d be able to use Starbucks’ recently expanded paid parental leave program.
Then in early October, Starbucks abruptly closed 20 local cafes as part of a $1 billion restructuring. Shuler and Nelson were out of a job, and couldn’t help but see it as “a big tonal and functional shift” at companies that had long presented themselves as progressive and pro-worker.
“They’re not playing nice anymore,” said Shuler, who’s hoping to finish her studies while Nelson looks for work. “We’re both still a little shellshocked.”
Jason Walker, cofounder of the management group Thrive HR Consulting, said he sees worker confidence faltering across industries. It’s reflected in the Department of Labor’s so-called quit rate, which usually falls during recessions, and has dropped from nearly 4.5 million people during the Great Resignation to 3.09 million in 2025.
Walker said three key notions held by people contemplating a career move have been upended: the sense that, “ ‘I know a job I want to get, I know the skills that I need, and I know how to get a job’ are basically all coming apart.”
That’s thanks in part to AI, which is haunting job-huggers and job-seekers alike. It’s prompting companies to reevaluate — and in some cases eliminate — what positions they need, and making it easy to get lost in a blizzard of automatically generated resumes.
“In the past when there were job freezes or slowdowns it was some degree of economics, there was a daylight that you ran to,” Walker said. “Now you just don’t see the daylight — if AI continues on its trend, there’s no point of reckoning where you feel safe.”
Even in industries where AI can’t really intervene, there’s still a sense of anxiety.
For example, take Jason Brandt, who works as a “relaxation specialist” at New England Spas in Natick, where he’s been selling hot tubs and cold plunges for the past six years. The 64-year-old has worked in retail most of his life, hopping from role to role, and said that if he was at another point in his career, he might have considered making a move by now. But these days, the state of the economy has him wanting to stay put.
“It’s true that everyone has their eyes open, but what runs through my mind is ageism. Who’s going to want a washed up 64-year-old to come work for them, especially in this economy?” he said. “I don’t know that right now would be a good time to look.”
Likewise, workers holding jobs in long-stable or high-demand industries cite the Trump administration’s policies as having made their work more stressful than ever. Between mass layoffs of federal workers and contractors, cuts to university research grants, and now the ongoing shutdown, there’s a queasiness among the region’s skilled workforces. And those ripple effects run deep.
Danielle, 38, has worked at a skilled nursing facility in MetroWest for seven years, grappling with uncertainty and burnout. She loved her job, she said, and would have liked to have stayed there, but amid cutbacks by insurers, uncertainty about Medicaid funding, and even the prospect of co-workers being caught up in immigration raids, there was so much instability in health care that she felt like she couldn’t stay put. (She asked to be identified by only her first name to protect her privacy from her employer.)
So earlier this month, Danielle decided it was worth the risk to try to find a new position. Through her network of former colleagues, she was able to land one in concierge medicine. She put in her notice last week.
“Taking that step was terrifying,” Danielle said. “It’s taken me a long time to pull the trigger.”
But if anything, cases such as Danielle’s show there might be some hope on the horizon, said Jonathan Gove, a senior executive adviser at Eagle Hill Consulting in Boston. The firm’s employee retention index is showing signs that worker anxiety may be abating. While he admits the survey took place before the government shutdown, he said results indicate a boost in worker confidence from “a pretty significant all-time low.” The rebound, he said, could show a willingness for workers to dust off their resumes.
“I’m seeing bright spots out there.”
Right now, that optimism is what Brandt is trying to focus on too. He likes his gig at New England Spa, and makes good money despite the tough economy. One thing he knows is true, he said: “Nobody is unhappy to buy a hot tub.”
Janelle Nanos can be reached at janelle.nanos@globe.com. Follow her @janellenanos.