Confidence in finding a new job is at an all-time low among workers, while job hugging—the trend in which “workers hold onto their jobs for dear life”—is at an all-time high, according to a new survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that was released on Monday.
The New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations for August found respondents believed they had only a 44.9% of finding another job after losing their current one—the lowest in the survey’s history since June 2013. That’s 5.8% lower than in July, the previous month.
The findings are in line with a July report that found the majority of employees plan to stay in their current jobs for at least the next six months, with Gen Z workers reporting the highest desire to stay put.
Another interesting finding: 39.1% of those surveyed expect the unemployment rate will be higher a year from now, up 1.7% from July and a point above the 12-month average.
Additionally, respondents expect inflation to go up in the short term but remain unchanged in the medium-to-long term. They also believe their spending and household income growth will remain the same.
The survey results reflect Americans’ general feelings of overall economic uncertainty in the face of higher prices, Trump’s tariffs, inflation, and the increasing cost of living.
The news comes at the same time as August’s weak jobs report. As Fast Company previously reported, last month U.S. employers added only 22,000 jobs. That was as unemployment hit 4.3%, the highest rate since 2021 during the pandemic. Setting aside the pandemic period, it was the largest share of unemployed Americans since September 2017, with more than 25% going without a job for over six months.
