The job market is frozen in place, and it may still be a while until it thaws, said Nicholas Bloom, the Stanford economist whose research explained why millions left their jobs during the Great Resignation.
His advice for people with a job right now? “don’t leave it,” Bloom said during a webinar at the Harvard Kennedy School last week titled “The Economic Consequences of the Iran War.”
Employers, despite eye-catching exceptions, are laying off employees at a historically low rate but are still reluctant to hire, meanwhile employees are “job-hugging,” essentially not leaving their positions at the lowest rate in years—a combination that’s stalling the job market, Bloom told Fortune in an email.
Yet, employees who may not be satisfied with their job for any reason such as their location or problems with their manager should be extra cautious about leaving, Bloom added in the email.
“Folks that want to change jobs should line one up before quitting their current role. You don’t want to quit a job to find that what you thought would be easy – getting another job – turns out to be a massive struggle,” he wrote.
