The “Great Stay”: Americans Are Afraid to Leave Their Jobs

After the COVID-19 pandemic, there was the “Great Resignation” as Americans left jobs with unmanageable pay or working conditions. In 2025’s challenging job market, however, the “Great Resignation” has given way to the “Great Stay.”

In other words, people are staying at jobs even when the pay is low and the tasks are impossible. Jobs are so hard to get nowadays, it seems, that Americans are afraid to leave whatever job they currently have to search for something better.

This might sound like an exaggeration if you follow the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, due to multiple downward revisions in this year’s payroll figures, the BLS is struggling with a credibility crisis in 2025.

So, you can choose to believe that the unemployment rate is 4.5% if you want to, or you can apply to hundreds of jobs and see what results you actually get. You may discover that many of the job postings out there are really just “ghost jobs” designed to collect unsuspecting applicants’ personal information.

Courtesy: Guy Berger

The reality is that the actual U.S. hiring rate is significantly below the projected hiring rate, and this has been the case for quite a while now. Moreover, the distance between the projected and actual hiring rates is widening, indicating a deep dislocation in the job market.

It’s a dislocation that, naturally favors corporations over workers. When workers are afraid to leave their jobs, they’re disempowered and are more likely to accept subpar pay and oppressive conditions at the workplace.

Certainly, this is likely to have ripple effects throughout the economy. After all, a fearful consumer won’t be a freely spending consumer during this holiday season, and corporate earnings aren’t possible without robust consumption.

When all is said and done, you need to apply the common sense test to any data point that’s presented to you. For example, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) from the BLS claims that there were 7.7 million jobs available in the U.S. at the end of October, but you might wonder how many of these job openings are real.

Courtesy: Lisa Abramowicz

A different data point that might pass the common sense test is the quits rate, which measures the proportion of American workers who quit their jobs in a specified month. For October, the quits rate was 1.8%, the lowest number since May of 2020 when COVID-19 wrecked the job market.

One might sum it up by saying that posted job openings tell you what companies want you to think, while the quits rate tells you how people really feel. Currently, people feel afraid to take the risk of pursuing better employment opportunities or just taking some time off of work.

Hopefully, the powers that be – including the Federal Reserve – will be responsive to the severe dislocations in the job market. Don’t count on getting a handout, bailout, or lifeline in the near term, though, as your well-being isn’t necessarily a top priority or even a consideration.