No One's Leaving. No One's Hiring. What Is Going On?

Tuesday ✅

Your job market update in 3 minutes.

📊 Job market dashboard: Net job growth is flat, but the hiring engine under the surface is still moving.

💡 Quick stat: Only 9% of U.S. workers are actively job hunting, the lowest mobility we've seen in years.

Today's Top Story: Workers Are Staying Put, And It's Changing Hiring

4 Corner Resources has released its Q4 2025 Employee Mindset Survey, highlighting one of the most stable (and least mobile) labor markets in years.

🧲 "Job hugging" is real:

• Only 9% of employees are actively looking for a new job.
• 75% say they're satisfied with their employer.
• 68% plan to stay at least three years.

👀 Generational divide:

• 39% of Gen Z expect to stay only 1–2 years.
• 51% of Gen X expect to stay 5+ years.

Why it matters: High satisfaction and low movement benefit retention, but they also signal a workforce prioritizing security over growth. Employers may see fewer applicants, slower pipelines, and less urgency around advancement unless they create it.

🔗 Q4 2025 Employee Mindset Survey

Market Movers

Where workers stay, and where they don't

Indeed Hiring Lab's new tenure analysis reveals dramatic differences across industries. The median U.S. worker stays 2 years, 3 months with their employer, but beneath that average is a labor market split in two.

🍔 Shortest tenures (1 year or less):

• Food service
• Retail
• Hospitality

Front-line workers churn fast due to low pay, demanding schedules, and limited advancement.

🎨 Longest tenures (5 years or more):

• School principals
• Drivers
• Freelance creatives
• Specialized or credentialed fields

Roles with higher pay, deeper expertise, or real career ladders hold people significantly longer.

📨 Application behavior:

• 16% of new hires apply to another job within their first month.
• 57% apply for other roles at some point during their tenure.
• Office roles generate the highest application volume; healthcare/childcare the lowest.

The takeaway for hiring managers: Tenure reflects job quality, not just worker preference. If a role resembles front-line service work in pay or conditions, churn is normal. If you want stability, invest in training, schedules, and clear advancement paths.

🔗 Indeed Hiring Lab

Job growth is flat, but hiring is happening behind the scenes

ADP's November data shows a deceptively quiet job market:

• Net private-sector jobs: ~2,500 jobs lost per week this period
• New-hire rate: 4.4%, higher than pre-pandemic
• New-hire pay growth: +1.7% YoY (slowest on record)
• Median hourly rate: $18, stalled for 16 months

👵 The workforce is aging fast: 36% of all U.S. workers are now 55+.

📉 Labor-force participation: 62.2% (still below pre-pandemic).

What it means:

• Employers are backfilling more than expanding.
• Raises are modest, leverage is weaker, and switching jobs doesn't deliver the premiums it did in 2022–2023.
• Openings exist, but competition is heavy because new roles aren't being created.

🔗 ADP

Tri-State employers cut jobs again, 3rd month in a row

The NY Fed's latest Business Leaders Survey shows employment sliding across New York, northern New Jersey, and southwestern Connecticut.

📉 Current employment index: -8.6 (worst in years)

More firms cut jobs (21.8%) than added them (13.2%).

💸 Wages: Still growing modestly at +25.4, but not accelerating.

🤔 Six-month outlook: +3.6, essentially flat.

Quote of the day: "Business activity continued to decline… the employment index remained negative and fell to a multiyear low." — Richard Deitz, NY Fed

Bottom line: Tri-state employers aren't planning major layoffs, but they aren't planning to hire either. Expect a slow winter.

🔗 NY Fed Business Leaders Survey

Fun Fact

👞 The first modern labor union in the U.S. was formed by Philadelphia shoemakers in 1792. Two centuries later, workers are still fighting for many of the same things: fair pay, predictable schedules, and stability.

👋 Have hiring questions or need staffing support? Contact 4 Corner Resources, we're here to help.