For years, young workers were told one thing: if you want a meaningful raise, don’t wait for your employer to give it to you, just leave. That advice shaped an entire generation. Millennials and Gen Z entered a labour market where loyalty often seemed expensive. Switching jobs every few years became less of a career move and more of a financial strategy. During the hiring frenzy that followed the pandemic, the numbers backed it up. Workers who changed employers routinely secured double-digit pay increases, while those who stayed behind settled for much smaller pay hikes.
But the labour market of 2026 is telling a different story. New data from Bank of America, ‘Should I stay or should I go? The pay tradeoff’ study May 2026 suggests the golden age of job-hopping is losing its shine. Workers who switch jobs are still earning more than those who stay put, but the gap has narrowed dramatically. More importantly, the workers feeling the biggest impact are the very people who grew up believing that changing jobs was the fastest route to better pay: Gen Z and younger millennials.
The career rulebook is being rewritten
The difference between staying and leaving used to be enormous. At the height of the Great Resignation in 2022, workers who switched jobs saw after-tax wage growth of nearly 18% year-over-year. Those who remained with the same employer saw pay growth of around 7%.
The message was clear. Staying loyal could leave workers far behind financially. Career advice across social media, workplaces and professional networks showed that reality. Employees were encouraged to move every two or three years, negotiate aggressively and treat job offers as leverage.
Fast forward to the first quarter of 2026, and that gap has shrunk to just three percentage points. Job switchers saw after-tax wage growth of 8%, compared with 5% for workers who stayed. It is the smallest advantage for switchers in seven years. Job-hopping still pays. It simply doesn’t pay the way it used to.
A cooler labour market changes everything
Employers are hiring more cautiously. Layoffs remain relatively contained. Former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell once described this environment as “low-hire, low-fire,” a market where companies are neither aggressively recruiting nor aggressively cutting staff.
That matters because the job-hopping boom was largely driven by competition. When companies desperately needed talent, they offered large salary increases to lure workers away from competitors. Today, many firms simply do not feel the same pressure.
As hiring slows, the premium attached to changing employers naturally shrinks. Workers can still secure higher pay by moving, but employers are no longer willing to offer the kind of eye-catching raises that became common a few years ago.
Gen Z is still switching jobs — but for smaller rewards
No generation embraces job mobility more than Gen Z. More than one in four Gen Z workers changed companies during the first quarter of 2026, making them by far the most mobile group in the workforce. Their switching rate is more than 10 percentage points higher than millennials and more than three times higher than baby boomers.
Yet Gen Z is also seeing the sharpest decline in the benefits of switching. While changing jobs still boosts earnings for younger workers, the rewards have become much smaller than they were during the pandemic-era labor boom. Pay growth for Gen Z workers who switched jobs has fallen by roughly 20 percentage points since 2022. Millennials face a similar trend, even though switchers in both generations continue to outperform their peers who stay put.
In other words, the strategy still works. It just no longer delivers the outsized returns that helped make job-hopping a defining feature of early-career life.
The surprising winners: older workers who stayed
As the advantage of switching fades, another group is quietly benefiting. Gen X and baby boomer workers who remained with their employers recorded steady wage growth in early 2026. Those who switched jobs, however, often saw flat or even declining pay.
The pattern becomes even more striking among top earners. Workers in the top 5% of the income distribution were the only group where staying with the same employer delivered stronger wage growth than changing jobs. For them, loyalty is no longer a sacrifice. In many cases, it has become the better financial choice.
Several factors may be driving this shift. Higher-paying industries such as technology, finance and professional services have experienced slower hiring in recent years. Companies may also be placing a greater premium on experience and institutional knowledge, making long-serving employees more valuable than outside hires.
An aging workforce is changing the equation
The labour force itself is getting older. Nearly one in four American workers is now aged 55 or above, and that share is growing faster than overall employment. The average age of a new hire reached 42 in 2025, the highest level on record. In a slower economy, employers appear to be rewarding experience more than potential.
For years, younger workers benefited from a market willing to pay a premium for fresh talent and mobility. Today, many employers are prioritizing proven skills, institutional knowledge and stability. Thatchange naturally favours older workers who have spent years building expertise within organisations. The result is a labour market where the traditional wisdom of frequent job changes no longer applies equally across age groups.
Many workers aren’t getting raises at all
Perhaps the most sobering finding in the data has little to do with job-hopping. More than half of workers who stayed with their employer saw no increase in after-tax pay — or even experienced a decline — during the first quarter of 2026. Among job switchers, 44% also saw flat or lower earnings.
Rising benefit costs, fewer working hours, career changes and layoffs may all be contributing factors. Whatever the reason, the data suggests that wage growth is not reaching everyone. Even as payroll growth improves and job switching begins to recover modestly, a significant share of workers remain under financial pressure.