A new study from Pew Research finds that around one-in-five workers say they are very or somewhat likely to look for a new job during the next six months. However, only a third of these workers believe it would be easy to find that job. The great resignation that begin in 2021 and continued into 2022 saw wage gains for the majority of workers who made a change. Low pay was cited as a top reason workers were quitting jobs in a 2022 study and, for most workers that changed jobs, that change has resulted in higher wages. 

Sixty percent of workers who switched jobs from April 2021 to March 2022 saw an increase in their real earnings over the same month of the prior year, while less than half (47%) of workers who remained with the same employer saw an increase in real earnings. Around a third (34%) of workers who left a job from January to March of 2022 — whether voluntarily or involuntarily — were with a new employer by the next month. 

While there has been a great deal of media coverage of available job openings in recent years, 37% of workers still think that finding a new job would be very or somewhat difficult. The workers most likely to say they may look for new employment are those who feel they have little or no job security in their current position. Forty-five percent of those who say they may look for a new job say that they have little or no job security in their current position, while only 14% sat that they have a great deal of security with their current job. Those who describe their financial situation as fair or poor are nearly twice as likely to plan to look for new employment as those with good to excellent financial situations.  

For the complete study, visit Pew Research.