American workers are staying put.

Workers across all sectors are switching jobs about as infrequently as they were in the years when the job market was still clawing its way back from the 2008-09 financial crisis. The "separation" rate, which includes both people who are laid off and those who leave their jobs voluntarily, has been stuck around its lowest levels since the years after the financial crisis. The flip side of that, the hiring rate, is similarly low.

"It's like a hen laying on its eggs," said Burning Glass Institute labor economist Guy Berger. "People feel like there are not great outside options."

The country is adding around 80,000 new jobs a month, boosted by Friday's solid jobs report, with 162,000 jobs added in August. That's a big improvement from the 10,000 jobs a month added on average in 2025, but not as robust as 2024 when the country added 122,000 jobs a month.

The market has settled into a "low hire, low fire" atmosphere. Workers who have managed to secure jobs are hanging onto them, especially in white-collar industries where the market isn't nearly as dynamic as it is in blue-collar sectors.

When so few people leave, few new roles open up for anyone else. University of Michigan labor economist Betsey Stevenson likens it to a crowded restaurant where every table filled up 10 minutes ago. It doesn't matter how many tables there are, or how long you've been waiting: Nobody gets a table until someone gets up. So, seeing how long the line is, nobody gives up their seat.

That's especially true if you really like your table. In years past, workers were much more willing to advance their careers and pay by hopping from one company to another, chasing opportunity with less worry about stability.

"If you have a job, you want to work to keep it," said Stevenson.

People who used to view staying at a company as a lack of ambition now see it as the opposite.

Kim Pohas saw a role she would have once considered her dream job posted last month and didn't even apply.

The 42-year-old technical writer in Irvine, Calif., knew she was qualified: Recruiters court her on LinkedIn all the time. But she won't gamble her current role-where she loves her boss, feels valued and has four years of seniority-especially when she keeps seeing friends surface in her feed, freshly laid off.

"I sound like the boomers who are like, 'stay for 20 years and get the gold watch and the vacation to Hawaii,'" Pohas said. "But maybe they knew what they were talking about."

Rather than test the market, Pohas has spent the past year making herself harder to replace. She taught herself how to use AI coding tools on her own time, then helped her company rebuild a piece of their software-work well beyond her job description. The bet paid off. She got a promotion that takes effect next month.

More than a third of the jobs gained this year have come from the healthcare sector. The construction sector, a beneficiary of the data-center building boom, has also seen gains. Manufacturing, which lost jobs last year amid worries over tariffs, has bounced back. The overall unemployment rate remains low at 4.1%.

White-collar workers can have a tough time breaking into the market. That is because there tends to be less job switching in jobs held by people with higher levels of education-the seats at the table don't empty as frequently, in effect. This can be especially true for veteran workers looking for more senior positions.

Nearly 2 million Americans have been locked out of the market for at least half a year. The long-term unemployed-people who have been unsuccessfully seeking work for 27 weeks or more-accounted for 27% of unemployed people in August. That was markedly higher than two years earlier, when it was closer to 21%. Among employed and unemployed people seeking work in August, a Gallup poll found that only 33% considered it a good time to find a quality job.

Trex Desai knows what the wait looks like. Seeking health insurance, and colleagues, while working as an independent consultant, Desai sent out over 200 applications and spent nine months interviewing before landing at a financial technology company five months ago.

"It was absolutely horrible," said Desai, who is 38 and lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two kids.

He has no desire to go through the experience again anytime in the near-or distant-future, in large part because he's thrilled with where he landed. He's investing in relationships across the company, proactively offering to help his co-workers rather than waiting for them to come to him and staying on top of new developments in the industry to bring back to his firm.

"I'm doubling down," he said.

The lack of white-collar mobility falls especially hard on the young, who make up a big share of job seekers and have long relied on hopping between companies to raise their pay.

Marieme Barry, 25, is one of the ones who made it in-and has no intention of testing her luck. The news analyst at a data analytics firm likes her job, where she feels challenged and supported, works from home and has the vacation days to feed her love of travel. Sure, she'd like to make more money one day. But she considers herself among the best-off of her friends, many of whom searched for months and settled for whatever they could find. She doesn't think a better role is waiting-especially right now.

"There's a lot to be said for staying where you are," Barry said. "All things in due time."

Ruzana Glaeser knows from experience that "the grass is green where you water it." The 42-year-old sourcing strategy manager left a power sports manufacturer in 2016 for a promotion, only to return in 2021. She recently turned down an opportunity at another company that would have offered her roughly double the pay when she learned the person who held it previously left due to burnout. She's happy where she is. Plus, "I like my kids."

One of Brian Bowers' first-ever managers told him he should never stay in the same role for more than two years. He has since decided it was terrible advice. The 40-year-old marketer worked at a string of big tech companies before an unexpected layoff last December, and has finally landed in a place he has no interest in ever leaving.

As soon as he started at his current job, his manager told him to "always assume I have your back," a statement he had never heard before from a higher-up. Within his first two months, he was flown out to a leadership meeting where he met the CEO.

"I'm staying as long as they'll keep me," he said.