Job hugging!

We have always been champions of hugging. From clutching relatives at weddings long enough to make the stage creak, to embracing one another at mosques after prayers, to greeting colleagues with theatrical warmth at the first meeting of the week. And of course, the masters of the art, our politicians, hugging voters before elections with dazzling smiles, then hugging power afterwards as if their lives depended on it.

Now, a fresh variety has entered the economy: job hugging. No, not HR forcing employees into beanbags and yoga circles, but people clinging to their jobs for dear life, even when they secretly wish to leave, because they cannot believe a better one will appear. This hugging often goes to extremes, driven less by loyalty than by doubt. Doubt about skills, doubt about opportunities, and doubt about whether the next paycheque will ever arrive if they let go.

CNN reports that in the United States, people who once jumped jobs for fat increments are now holding tight to their desks. The pay boost from switching has shrunk, especially in white-collar fields like finance, tech, law and consulting. Bank of America says job hopping has slowed, and the once generous salary jumps have dried up. Meanwhile, a University of Michigan survey shows 60 percent of Americans expect unemployment to rise in the coming year, up from just 33 percent last November. That is the highest level of pessimism since the Great Recession. Fewer jobs, smaller raises, and more people hugging their office chairs like long-lost cousins.

Now picture that reality, but with Bangladeshi seasoning. Here, job hugging is not a trend but the default for much of the workforce. Not the high-flying few who juggle multiple offers, but the majority who are insecure, under-skilled, or drifting with the current. They do not dream of a career leap; they dream of receiving their salaries before the rent cheque bounces.

Switching jobs in Bangladesh was never as lucrative as in the West, but there used to be hope of a raise. A decade ago, or even in the post-Covid Great Resignation, changing companies often meant a 20 to 30 percent salary hike. Now, the figure has dropped to a historic low of about 7 percent. Many employers no longer bother offering more because they know people are unwilling to risk a move. Why would they, when inflation eats up 10 percent of household budgets each year, when onion prices can double between breakfast and dinner, and when new job openings are not keeping pace with the two million fresh entrants to the labour market annually?

For many, staying put is less about comfort than fear. Fear of being replaced by a younger, cheaper, more tech-savvy recruit. Fear of joining a firm that could collapse within months. Fear of failing to juggle tuition fees, loan instalments and groceries without the certainty of a regular paycheque. In such a climate, loyalty is not romantic; it is reluctant.

But the cost is heavy. An economy where workers cling too tightly to jobs eventually loses vitality. Creativity fades, ambition shrinks, and offices fill with people who function on resignation rather than inspiration. Job hugging may keep the household running, but it extinguishes the spark of innovation. When job switching slows, bargaining power weakens, employers grow complacent, and pay stagnates while demands increase. The ecosystem decays, and in the end, everyone suffers.

The West may call it a new trend, but in Bangladesh, we have been hugging jobs forever. The bigger irony is that our policymakers and employers cling to outdated policies even more tightly. Without bold reform, this will not be job security but a national straitjacket, wrapping survival so tightly that progress cannot breathe.

The writer is president of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh and founder of BuildCon Consultancies Ltd