Factors That Have Made the Job Market More Difficult in 2026 (Job Hugging):

 Factors That Have Made the Job Market More Difficult in 2026 (Over Hiring):

Workers aren’t leaving the jobs they have (this is recognized as "job hugging". The number of jobs people quit in December came to 3.2M, the Labor Department reported Thursday, well below the 4.5M hit in March 2022, when postpandemic hiring was in full swing. The quits rate, which measures quits as a share of employment, was 2%, well short of the 2.3% it averaged in 2019, before the pandemic.

All is relevant because the bulk of hiring in any given month is replacing people who have left. The low level of quits is probably driven by workers’ sense that the labor market is fragile and that available opportunities are in short supply.

Source: WSJ