More workers feel stuck on the job

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. More Americans are looking to switch jobs than at any point in the past decade. In a cooling job market, that’s a lot easier said than done.

White-collar hiring continues to slow, but workers’ restlessness to find new work is intensifying, new Gallup data show. More than half of 20,000 U.S. workers surveyed in November said they were watching for or actively seeking a new job.

That’s the largest share since 2015, eclipsing the so-called Great Resignation of 2021 and 2022, when millions of people quit jobs for better ones. The result? Job satisfaction has fallen to its lowest level in recent years as employees feel more stuck—and frustrated—where they are, according to Gallup, whose quarterly surveys are widely viewed as a bellwether of workplace sentiment. Smaller raises and fewer promotions are spurring some of the discontent, workers say.

So are cost-cutting moves and stepped-up requirements to be working in offices more often. Not too long ago, those employees could act on their dissatisfaction by finding a new job with relative ease—and better pay. Now, “we currently sit in a holding pattern," says Gallup workplace research director Ben Wigert.

Just 18% of workers surveyed by the polling firm said they were extremely satisfied with their current job, down from 20% a year ago and third less than a decade ago. Though he made good money, Pancho Gomez says he felt trapped in his job as a senior manager of customer experience at a retail-tech company. He craved more communication and says being asked to do more with less left him feeling disempowered.

Yet his search for other opportunities turned up few. He was laid off in June, and says he felt relief instead of disappointment. “The