Job-hopping is back: 48% of searchers now expect to land more money

Nearly a year ago, instructional designer Holly Owens felt stuck. As much as she loved her line of work, she was trapped in a job where 12-hour days were the norm, pay cuts seemed imminent, and her bosses weren't providing the support she wanted. 

What to do? It wasn't until February 2021 that Owens found a better way to put all the pieces together. She switched employers and moved to Myrtle Beach, S.C., for family reasons, leaving Long Island, N.Y. behind. Her hours are shorter, pay is secure and work conditions are more flexible. Best of all, her peace of mind has recovered. 

"I haven't felt this energized in a long time," Owen says. "Before I felt like I was being put in a box." Now, working as a senior instructional designer at Academic Partnerships, she says, "I feel fulfilled." 

Across the United States, the idea of hunting for a better job -- even if you’re employed full-time right now -- is coming back in style. Among the places where this restless ambition shows up is the latest edition of LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence survey, which polled 5,076 LinkedIn members from April 24 through May 7. 

As the chart below shows, 48% of active seekers who already hold full-time jobs now feel more confident about their income increasing. There are lots of ways this might happen, and landing a better-paying new job is definitely among them. As recently as the second half of March, only 36% of employed job-seekers felt that way. 

There’s rising optimism about increased availability of jobs, too --which pairs up with renewed faith that job-hopping can accelerate people’s careers. In the latest survey period, 42% of employed job seekers said they’re more upbeat about their prospects of advancing to the next level in their field. Back in mid-March, only 33% felt that way. 

As recently as February, the national mood was much warier. The Workforce Confidence survey back then showed 74% of respondents back then were “sheltering in job,” focusing mostly on collecting a steady paycheck and keeping household finances stable. 

But with the U.S. economy now rapidly opening back up, following more than a year of COVID-19 related restrictions, “it’s as if we’re seeing a rebirth,” says Kolby Shibata-Goodman, a San Diego-based career coach who operates The Job Huntr website.  

“With the pandemic, people have had a lot of time to think and ponder about what value they really want to be contributing,” he says. “Now they’re ready to act on that.” 

Eric James Stephens is a former college-level writing instructor who left academia last year for a new job as a business analyst at Gaggle, an ed-tech company based in Dallas. It took him a few weeks to find his footing in this new role, he says. Now he’s thriving by taking the research methods he learned en route to a Ph. D. -- and recasting them for business settings. 

In addition, Stephens has built an exciting side gig that helps other frustrated academics make a break to the private sector, too. Waves of educators are getting ready to try their lot at companies with openings in areas such as data analytics, project management and user-experience design, he says. “Jobs in ed tech are exploding,” Stephens declares. “And I’m seeing a large number of companies that are actively targeting teachers for them.”

 A decade ago, when the 2008-2010 recession crushed the housing and manufacturing sectors, it took several years of an achingly slow recovery to get the labor markets fully back to normal. Today, with more than 124 million Americans fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and with most states moving briskly to reopen commerce and everyday life, the conditions for a faster bounce back are in place. 

While job-seekers’ upturn is especially pronounced, overall trends in the latest Workforce Confidence survey have brightened, too. The U.S. Confidence Index, which is measured on scale from -100 (worst) to +100 (best), hit its highest reading since the survey started in April 2020. 

That index is at +39 now, up two points from the previous reading. Nudging the index higher is record strength in the latest readings for people’s attitudes about their finances and careers. 

Workforce Confidence Index methodology

LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index is based on a quantitative online survey distributed to members via email every two weeks. Roughly 5,000 U.S.-based members respond each wave. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. Students, stay-at-home partners and retirees are excluded from analysis so we can get an accurate representation of those currently active in the workforce. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy. Data is weighted by engagement level, to ensure fair representation of various activity levels on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership & overall market population are not accounted for.

Alexandra Gunther and Neil Basu from LinkedIn Market Research contributed to this article.