The Mounting Ranks of Job Huggers

By Russell Pearlman

November 24, 2025

Imagine a corporate leader arriving in an auditorium for an annual town-hall meeting with a couple hundred staffers. The first thing she notices is how many faces look familiar—in fact, too many faces. Scanning the room, she realizes she can’t find a single new hire in the crowd. Not one. It dawns on her: Hardly anyone has left the firm in the last year.

Multiply this by the thousands, and eventually millions, and you begin to realize that the corporate world has quite a problem on its hands. Forget adopting AI, in fact—this may be a bigger issue in 2026. Last fall, the term “job hugging” swept through the media, as workers young and old decided it was better to stay put than leave. Today, they are still staying put.

Indeed, the population of job huggers is quite eye-opening. The current quit rate in the US is 2 percent a month, which, except for the worst periods of the pandemic, is the lowest in nearly a decade. It equates to a rather stunning statistic: The 1.5 million workers who would normally have left their companies each month are instead sticking around—more than 10 million of them since the start of 2025. Leaders, of course, like to have experienced employees, but they also need fresh blood to energize their firms. Plus, they worry that job huggers are much more focused on staying employed than on taking risks to innovate. “There’s a lot of struggle finding ways to incentivize full-time employees to work harder or differently,” says Raquel Braun, cofounder of the media-consulting firm Mulier Fortis.

It’s not difficult to figure out why so many workers are clinging to their roles. While unemployment hasn’t increased much, there are 40 percent fewer open roles than there were three years ago. Meanwhile, firms report that attracting new recruits who already have work has become much harder. Many don’t want to go through a job-search process that can take months or years; others worry they’ll find themselves in a last-in, first-out situation if the new organization restructures, says Brittney Molitor, a Korn Ferry managing consultant in the firm’s Human Resources Professional Search division.

Experts say that there are a variety of ways, even if none are foolproof, to get the most out of a group of job huggers. For starters, leaders can do a better job of figuring out who among them are the highest-potential and highest-productivity workers—and return the embrace with salary bumps and development opportunities. “We want our best talent to hug,” says Kevin Cashman, Korn Ferry’s vice chairman for CEO and enterprise leadership. Conversely, firms may need to evaluate which of their job huggers might not be worth the extra investment. In many cases, companies’ current systems, including evaluations, feedback sessions, and other performance tools, don’t always do a good job identifying top talent.

There are more jarring options as well, including reassignments. Moving workers can be a way to fill jobs vital to future projects while also trimming costs associated with old ones. Plus, the reassignment, if communicated and well executed, could energize the job hugger. Layoffs are an option too, of course, but experts caution that carrying them out too quickly in today’s business world could scare off talented new hires, and cause staff shortages during unanticipated growth spurts.

Importantly, experts say employers shouldn’t let all the job hugging lull them into a false sense of security. “Organizations should acknowledge retention may be high for the wrong reason: fear, not loyalty,” says California employment lawyer Eric Kingsley. Indeed, experts say the job-hugging phenomenon could easily fade, and companies that don’t make an effort to keep today’s job huggers could eventually find themselves short of top talent.

Photo credits: Rob Dobi; Poligrafistka/Getty Images