{"id":805918,"date":"2025-09-11T08:03:30","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T08:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.personneltoday.com\/?p=338556"},"modified":"2025-09-11T08:03:30","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T08:03:30","slug":"employees-more-likely-to-be-staying-put-and-job-hugging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/squarehrwired.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/11\/employees-more-likely-to-be-staying-put-and-job-hugging\/","title":{"rendered":"Employees more likely to be staying put and \u2018job hugging\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In a sluggish and competitive jobs market, employees are prioritising holding on to their roles and \u2018job hugging\u2019 is on the rise, research has argued.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The report by Employment Hero has added to the sense of stagnation currently hanging over the UK jobs market, where a run of reports over the summer have all highlighted just how challenging the outlook is<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The research, drawn from aggregated insights from more than 350,000 small businesses and two million employees in the UK,  Australia, New Zealand, as well as a separate YouGov survey of 3,635 workers, argued the employment rate has followed a distinct U-shaped curve in recent months.<\/p>\n

Following a sharp decline in the aftermath of the budget, where the seasonal peak in the run-up to Christmas did not materialise and a sharp dip of -0.9% was recorded in December 2024, there was a slow but steady recovery from February.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, overall, the UK\u2019s employment landscape has shown signs of \u201ca significant slowdown\u201d over the past 12 months, said Employment Hero.<\/p>\n

As of July 2025, while the employment rate remained positive on a year-on-year basis, standing at 3.1%, this growth rate had decelerated markedly.<\/p>\n

This indicated a weakening labour market compared with the same period in 2024, when the year-on-year growth rate was consistently hovering around 8%. This slowdown coincided with the government\u2019s National Insurance reforms introduced in April, Employment Hero argued.<\/p>\n

In fact, last October\u2019s Budget<\/a>, with its changes to NI, has had a lasting impact on the employment landscape, it said.<\/p>\n

While employment growth is slowly recovering, year-on-year gains are still down and new job opportunities are only just picking up.<\/p>\n

At a day-to-day level, the weaker labour market meant employees are prioritising holding on to their roles and \u2018job hugging\u2019 is on the rise, it argued.<\/p>\n

The YouGov polling, for example, showed that a majority of workers (55%) are now prioritising job security, putting their ambitions on hold while they await signs of sustained labour market growth and improved business confidence. This rose to 65% of 18\u201334-year-olds.<\/p>\n

Moreover, a majority of employees (59%) also felt the UK labour market is getting worse, while 51% did not feel confident about landing a new job within three months.<\/p>\n

This, Employment Hero argued, reflected wider sentiment around the intensely competitive nature of the labour market, as 40% felt there was too much competition for jobs, rising to 53% among 18\u201334-year-olds.<\/p>\n

Kevin Fitzgerald, UK managing director at Employment Hero, said: \u201cWhile the labour market is showing early signs of recovery, our data shows we\u2019ve still got a long way to go before workers feel confident again. With most people holding a negative view of the jobs market, it\u2019s no surprise we\u2019re seeing more \u2018job hugging\u2019 as employees look to weather the storm. But this isn\u2019t a long-term solution. Job mobility is key for growth \u2013 both for people and businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cRecent changes to the tax regime have also knocked confidence. The rise in employer National Insurance Contributions has had a ripple effect right across the economy, and we\u2019re now at a critical juncture. As we head towards the Autumn Budget, avoiding more tax changes that trigger knee-jerk reactions from businesses will be vital if we want to build on the early signs of recovery,\u201d Fitzgerald added.<\/p>\n

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In a sluggish and competitive jobs market, employees are prioritising holding on to their roles and \u2018job hugging\u2019 is on the rise, research has argued. The report by Employment Hero has added to the sense of stagnation currently hanging over the UK jobs market, where a run of reports over the summer have all highlighted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,297,236,31,114,154],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-805918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-graduates","category-labour-turnover","category-latest-news","category-recruitment-retention","category-retention-of-staff","category-staff-turnover"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/squarehrwired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/squarehrwired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/squarehrwired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/squarehrwired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/squarehrwired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/squarehrwired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/squarehrwired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/squarehrwired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/squarehrwired.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}