The 51% of American workers who want a new job may have to wait a while — but they probably won't get laid off in the meantime.
Bank of America economists said in research note that the U.S. labor market was "currently characterized by a lack of churn: soft hiring and low layoffs," CNBC reported Monday.
The experts described it Friday as a "low-hire, low-fire environment," CNBC said.
A Gallup poll released last week found that overall job satisfaction in the U.S. had returned to the record low of 18% reported in February 2022 and February 2024.
As a result, 51% of respondents said they were either watching for or actively seeking new jobs, Gallup said.
But unlike the pandemic-era "Great Resignation" of 2021 — when the so-called national quit rate hit a 20-year high of 19%, according to the Pew Research Center — many frustrated workers now feel stuck with their discontent, Gallup said.
That led Gallup to call the latest development the "Great Detachment," and it warned employers that they faced "hidden organizational risks" including decreased productivity and future talent loss.
Julia Pollak, chief economist at the ZipRecruiter hiring website, told CNBC that many employers have shifted their focus to retaining their workers instead of finding new ones.
That means satisfied workers "have unprecedented job security," while those "who really want out may need to widen their search, expand their parameters, and get a bit uncomfortable and reskill," Pollak said.
Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed job website, also said that the job market was "diverging," with strong growth in industries including health care, government, and leisure and hospitality.
But job growth has been "very, very slow" in white-collar fields including software development, marketing, and media and communications, Stahle said.
"Right now, your experience with the labor market will depend on the type of job you're doing," he said.
