ATLANTA — The instinct to jump ship is fading for many U.S. workers in early 2026 as hiring slows, fueling a workplace trend known as job hugging that has 48% of employed people staying in their roles longer than they otherwise would and 75% expecting to remain in the same job for at least two more years. With job seekers facing fewer openings and longer searches, employees are increasingly treating stability as a form of insurance, Feb. 1, 2026.
That caution resonates with Maurice Saunders, a 29-year-old cybersecurity consultant who says he used to change jobs about every two years to raise his pay and move up. Now, he’s leaning into job hugging instead. “I’m hugging my job for security,” Saunders said in a Reuters report about his decision to stay put.
Saunders said he’s still career-focused, but he’s redirecting that energy inward: building skills, chasing certifications and looking for internal opportunities rather than betting on the open market. The external landscape feels different, he said, especially for newcomers. “I think AI has eliminated a lot of entry-level positions in technology,” Saunders added.
Job hugging becomes a career hedge
The numbers behind job hugging come from Monster’s 2025 Job Hugging findings, based on a Pollfish survey of 1,004 employed U.S. workers conducted Oct. 9, 2025. Beyond the headline figures, respondents pointed to pay and benefits, job security, and a desire for stability as leading drivers — a mix that can keep people employed while also leaving them feeling boxed in.
Government labor data helps explain why the mood has shifted. The latest U.S. jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed payroll growth remained muted in December, while the unemployment rate held in the mid-4% range — signs of a market that is still adding jobs, but not fast enough to feel forgiving. On the demand side, job openings were 7.1 million in November 2025, down 885,000 from a year earlier, according to a BLS summary of its job openings and turnover data.
In that environment, job hugging can look less like loyalty and more like risk management. It’s also a pivot from the pandemic-era churn, when workers had leverage and quitting was common. In 2021, a majority of those who quit cited low pay and limited advancement as key reasons, according to a 2022 Pew Research Center analysis. By late summer 2025, Axios was already describing workers as “job hugging” as hiring weakened — and the latest survey data suggests the behavior has hardened into a broader habit.
For workers like Saunders, the stakes are straightforward: staying put may reduce near-term risk, but it can also blur market value and slow momentum if promotions and raises don’t follow. The bet behind job hugging is that workers can keep growing without moving — and that the market will eventually thaw enough to make the next step a choice, not a gamble.
