There is a strange thing happening in the Australian labour market right now. Ask workers whether they would consider changing jobs and more than half say yes. Look at how many actually did, and the number is one in fourteen.
That gap tells you more about the state of work in Australia in 2026 than any single statistic does. People are not content. They are cautious. And the difference between those two things matters a great deal, whether you are the one thinking about your next move or the one trying to hold a team together.
What the numbers actually say
The Australian Bureau of Statistics released its latest job mobility figures at the end of July. Just over 1.0 million employed people, or 7.2 per cent of the workforce, changed their employer or business in the year to February 2026. The year before it was 7.7 per cent. The year before that, higher again.
This is not a blip. The ABS describes it as the continuation of a long-term decline stretching back to the 1970s, with the notable spikes tending to arrive around periods of economic uncertainty rather than during them. Recruiters have started calling it job hugging. People are holding on.
Set that against what workers say when you ask them directly. Research from Robert Half found 56 per cent of Australian employees would consider changing jobs over the next year if it led to better lifestyle outcomes. Among Gen Z that rises to 62 per cent.
So more than half are open to it. Roughly seven per cent do it.
What is driving the hesitation
The obvious answer is money, and money is part of it. But the more interesting driver is confidence, and confidence is low in a specific way.
ADP Research’s People at Work 2026 report found that only 25 per cent of Australian workers feel confident their job is safe from elimination. That figure is better than the Asia Pacific average of 18 per cent, which is not much comfort. It drops to 18 per cent among workers aged 18 to 26.
The breakdown by type of work is worth sitting with. Knowledge workers reported the highest confidence at 35 per cent. Skilled task workers came in at 20 per cent and workers in repetitive task roles at 19 per cent. If your work is hands on, you are roughly half as likely to feel secure in it as someone at a desk.
That is the backdrop to every decision a worker is making right now. When you are not sure your current job is safe, a new one looks like more risk, not less. Last on, first off is not a theory to anyone who has worked through a downturn.
What people are actually looking for
Workers’ priorities have shifted away from where a lot of employers still think they are.
Recent workforce research found that when asked what would most help them feel financially secure in 2026, 45 per cent of workers pointed to a pay rise, 24 per cent to a side income and 22 per cent to job stability. Work flexibility came in at 8 per cent.
Flexibility has not become unimportant. Hybrid arrangements still matter enormously for retention. But it is no longer the thing that makes someone feel like their life is on solid ground, and for a few years there a lot of employers were treating it as though it was.
The three things that move people now are stability, culture and growth. Stability meaning the work will still be there in two years. Culture meaning the day to day is not grinding them down. Growth meaning there is a version of this job that is better than the one they have today.
Worth noting what is not on that list. Nobody is moving for a slightly nicer title.
If you are thinking about a move
The market rewards deliberate moves right now and punishes rushed ones. A few things worth knowing.
Be honest about why you are going. There is a real difference between running towards something and running away from something, and it shows up in interviews whether you name it or not. If the problem is your manager rather than the work, a lateral move to a different company with a similar structure may land you in the same spot in eighteen months.
Check that the new job is more secure, not just newer. Ask about the team’s headcount over the past two years. Ask what happened to the last person in the role. Ask what the pipeline looks like. Reasonable employers expect these questions in 2026 and the ones who bristle at them have told you something.
Do not underestimate what you have already got. Tenure is currency in a cautious market. About 39 per cent of employed Australians have been in their current job between one and four years, and that stability reads well to a new employer. Leaving at eighteen months for the right reason is fine. Leaving at eight months three times running is a pattern.
Move on the strength of what you can do, not just what you have done. In a tighter market with fewer vacancies, employers get to be more selective. Current, recognised skills are frequently the thing separating two otherwise similar candidates. A short course or an extra ticket often does more than another year of the same experience.
Talk to someone who sees the whole market. You get one view of what is out there. A recruiter working across an industry sees the roles that never get advertised, knows which employers actually retain people and can tell you whether the salary you are being offered is fair.
If you are the employer
Here is the part worth thinking carefully about.
Low job mobility is not loyalty. A workforce that stays put because it is nervous is not the same as a workforce that stays because it wants to. The first one looks identical to the second on a retention report and behaves nothing like it.
More than half your people would consider a move for a better outcome. Most are not acting on it because the market feels risky. When conditions loosen, and they will, that hesitation goes away and the intention does not.
People who do move right now are moving deliberately. When someone leaves a stable job in a cautious market, they have thought hard about it and someone has made them a genuinely better offer. That is who is in the candidate pool at the moment, and it is a stronger pool than the raw numbers suggest.
The short version
Australians are not restless. They are watchful. They are weighing up whether the work will last, whether the culture is worth staying for and whether there is anywhere to go from here.
If you are weighing up a move, have a look through our current job listings and see what is actually out there in your industry. There is no harm in knowing what the market looks like before you decide anything.
And if you are an employer wondering whether the quiet in your team is contentment or something else, get in touch today to find out more about how Job Connect can support you.
Sources
Australian Bureau of Statistics, Job Mobility, February 2026, released 31 July 2026. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/jobs/job-mobility/latest-release
Robert Half career change survey, December 2025. https://newshub.medianet.com.au/2025/12/half-of-australian-workers-open-to-career-change-in-2026-as-demand-for-new-skills-grows/134632/
ADP Research, People at Work 2026, August 2026. https://anz.peoplemattersglobal.com/news/life-at-work/only-1-in-4-australian-workers-feel-their-jobs-are-safe-from-elimination-says-report-51416
Workforce priorities research, January 2026. https://www.accomnews.com.au/2026/01/job-security-takes-priority-as-australia-enters-a-workforce-reset-in-2026/