New data on job mobility suggests Australians are becoming less likely to move jobs, with the rate of workers changing employment falling to under eight per cent for the year to February 2025. An RMIT expert explains the external factors shaping this trend, and how it can impact workplace dynamics.
Andrew Dhaenens, Senior Lecturer, Management and Leadership:
"There is a confluence of factors recreating this classic case of reluctant stayers.
"The job market is threatened by layoffs and displacement from AI, while job searching has been strained with the flood of AI-fueled applications against a wall of ghost jobs, making for an uncomfortable time for everyone involved.
"At the same time, cost-of-living pressures are making it harder for people to make lateral moves or change locations.
"These external factors are not just limiting job mobility but changing how people think about their work.
"A lot of anxiety is born from identity threats, where people feel uncertain about their role, value or future at work, and an overall lack of trust in leadership to look out for them.
"People are likely to direct that anxiety toward conversations around AI, when in many cases the real issues are in leadership, communication, and day-to-day workplace relationships.
"For organisations, this is the time to have honest conversations with their people on purpose, and trust. Rethinking the old principle, I am a firm believer that 80 per cent of the stress comes from 20 per cent of the job. Most of these discomforts are fixable, but only if we have the conversations at work."
Andrew Dhaenens is a Senior Lecturer in Management and Leadership at RMIT University. With a background in human resources, his research largely explores workplace relationships with projects around the future of work including organisational change, work arrangements, and employee turnover.
***
