The Happiest Way to Change Jobs

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If the job-search firm Monster.com is right in its survey research, you are probably looking for a new job. According to its data at the end of last year, that’s what an eye-popping 96 percent of Americans workers reported doing. And yet, you probably won’t actually make that change: One Pew Research Center study found that only about 30 percent of workers changed jobs at least once in 2022, which was roughly on par with the level of turnover in 2021.

What accounts for the 66-point difference between aspiration and action? , a mental-health website, notes that a common reason people stay: Will the new job be worse than the old one? This is a powerful emotion, liable to dominate other ones because evolutionarily it was so important to our survival. Our ancestors passed on their genes because they did say, “I don’t know what kind of mushrooms those are, but I bet they’re delicious!”