It’s called ‘Job Hugging’ - Fear of job market paralyzing many workers from looking for a better job

Mass. — This is a tough time to be looking for a job.

Many companies have paused hiring, replaced workers with A-I, or been laying people off.

This is creating a new scenario for many workers called “Job Hugging”.

They’re just trying to hang on.

One woman in Brookline’s Coolidge Corner told Boston 25 News, “Oh my goodness! I wouldn’t even say it’s competitive anymore right now. It’s just application after application being put out with either immediate rejection or ghosting all the way.”

Another woman added, “I’m definitely concerned. I’m like one-year post-grad, and while I have a job, I know a lot of my friends have been really struggling with searching for a job.”

Instead of searching for a new opportunity, many workers are hunkering down in their current position.

Another woman concurred, telling us, “There’s definitely a sentiment of keeping your job rather than going out and potentially not being able to find a new job.”

Mary Cavanaugh, a senior vice president for career management at Keystone Partners, said, “Job hugging right now is the term that’s being used for individuals who are fearful of leaving their current roles. They are staying where they are and then sometimes complacency is seeping in.”

Josh Stillwagon, Ph.D., chairs the economics division of economics at Babson College in Wellesley. He said the job market has cooled considerably.

“I think it has to do with some of the uncertainty around policy. So, firms have been hesitant to hire because of some of the uncertain outlooks related to tariffs, for example, and the manufacturing sector in particular looks like it’s struggling.”

He said some of the difficulties for new entrants can be traced to A-I replacing some jobs.

Job creation over the last six months is down 666,000 jobs compared to the same period a year ago, according to numbers from the ADP National Employment Report.

“2021 to 2022, we saw the Great Resignation and had a lot of that job hopping,” said Cavanaugh. “Candidates were almost able to name their price, and now we’ve seen that shift with the economic concerns and the tightening of the job market itself.”

And that’s why job hopping has been replaced with job hugging.

Cavanaugh says job huggers need to be proactive to survive the current storm.

“Embracing of change, jumping in, learning, and raising your hand. You don’t want to be replaced or on a list of potential exits. So, if you can show and demonstrate that you are agile, agility is critical now, where before it was a nice-to-have.”

She also says job-hugging shouldn’t be a long-term strategy.

“One of the negatives of job hugging is if you stay too long and you’re doing it out of fear and complacency, that’s not helping your career or the organization.”

At least in the short term, most people with a job are thankful to have it.

But that doesn’t mean life is easy.

One man in Brookline told us, “I think there’s a lot of people left behind from the people who leave, and they’re being asked to do more, not less, and I think that actually adds impact to people being stressed or strained in their jobs.”

The Massachusetts unemployment rate is currently 4.8% which is slightly higher than the national average.

Cavanaugh says one reason is that the once-booming life sciences industry has cooled considerably.

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