Why change jobs is risky at the moment

If it is not broken, do not repair it.

For many workers, this well -used piece of popular wisdom could be the best advice to decide to change jobs in 2025.

If you have a job and you are not in a warm field like artificial intelligence, it is probably intelligent to stay in place unless you are worried about being cut – or you are simply miserable, told business insider, observers of the labor market.

In the third Episode of the Six Parties of BI series on major life decisions periods of immense change focused on policiesWe examine if it’s a good time to change jobs. We have already covered best practices to start a business and buy a house.

There are key reasons why you may want to hold it in your current role. Among the biggies: the overall job openings are decreasing, hiring occurs at the slowest rate in about a decade, and some employers feel nervous.

This is partly because many are faced with major questions about what will happen with prices and interest rates. Uncertainty has spread on the financial markets, whose swings have sometimes been like a control engineer for the American economy.

All of this is added to a labor market which is “paralyzed”, told Bi Cory Stahle, economist of the job laboratory.

“Employers do not know if they can engage in certain job plans,” he said.

This means that if you are thinking of giving your two -week opinion, you probably have more to consider that a few months ago – including how robust your network is, how many jobs in your field, and how much your employer is, Susan Peppercorn, an executive coach, told Bi.

“It is not the strongest labor market, but again, it is not the weakest,” she said.

Overall, job offers in the United States fell 5 percentage points in 2025, Stahle said.

It’s not the same labor market

The publications on white collar roles dropped by 12.7% of the first quarter of 2024 in the first quarter of 2025, according to Revio Labs, which examines the trends in employment. During the same period, the openings for blue collar jobs dropped by 11.9%.

Taking a longer opinion, the opportunities for certain office jobs are much less widespread than during the Bonanza of Jobs a few years ago. Since the era of the great resignation at the beginning of 2022 in the first quarter of 2025, publications for software developers and commercial analysts have dropped by approximately 76%, while the openings for market research work dropped by around 80%, revealed Revelio.

However, this is not all bad news. Stahle said that the demand for workers in areas, including health care and construction, had resisted. In addition to that, he said, many employers who have struggled to attract workers a few years ago are not impatient to dismiss them now, especially since it is not clear how long as the pricing swamp could persist.

To find out if this is the right time to take a step, you may only need to ask someone without work. On average, people spend more time looking for.

In April, the median job seekers were unemployed was 10.4 weeks adjusted seasonally, according to the Labor Department. This takes place compared to eight weeks in June 2022.

Switching could take time

You might be tempted to jump because, in general, fewer of us are made up of what we do. In 2024, the world share of worked employees fell to 21%, from 23%, recent Gallup figures show. This is only the second annual decline since 2009; The other was 2020 during pandemic locking.

Stahle said that if you don’t like your job and there are no other options for your employer, you should be ready for the search for more time.

If you are not satisfied with your role, you could focus on growth by adding skills or looking for other spots in your employer, Jennifer Delski, CEO and founder of Rising Team, a performance team platform, told Bi.

If your work is at risk, or if you think it might be, start looking, she said.

How to start looking for a job

DULSKI said your research should involve more than scrolling through the openings. You will have to contact people and start connecting – a term it prefers on networking.

With fewer openings and employers taking more time to bring people on board, any advantage can help.

“People have to work harder now to stand out,” said Delski, who has spent about 25 years in technology, including management positions at Yahoo, Google and Facebook.

Peppercorn has offered similar advice, saying that if you are on the market, you must be able to show what makes you “unique and convincing”.

The success you are likely to be in your job search – and how fast it takes place – will have a lot to do with your skills, she said.

These capacities must be well suited to what employers want, said Peppercorn. A job change may not be difficult if you are a nurse or if someone develops AI tools, for example.

In the end, jobs must be there. Peppercorn said that you should hope to see at least 10 open roles for which you could apply and that you would have a reasonable blow to landing.

It is also more logical, she said, to devote well-designed job requests rather than pursuing lots of openings in the hope of taking a bite. Peppercorn also said that if a publication had more than 50 candidates, it could be worth looking elsewhere.

Perhaps above all, she said, forging links with others will remain essential.

“What is needed to get another job is solid network connections, not what you see published online,” said Peppercorn.

Do you have a story to share on your job search? Contact this journalist at tparadis@businessinsider.com.