The Phenomenon of Job Hugging

Job hugging becomes a phenomenon that plague many employees in these hard times. Often enduring more hardship, burnout and stress of the current jobs more than in "fair and square" market. in hard time, people tend to seek stability and savings the little paycheck they have instead of job hopping for potential employment elsewhere.

Like it or not the balance is in the employer's side for now and... They know they can get away with it. Employers often make ghost posting to increase the artificial demand about a role that have been filled so employee would think twice before leaving the company. If the employee left the job and sign off their contract, Employer would not batting an eye for them and find his or her replacement soon. All thanks to their wide range of CV saved and desperate people.

Rising grocery prices for daily goods is like adding fuel to the flame. People often does not have good safety net when shit hit the fan. Many people living paycheck to paycheck in this time and often have no control about the sums they receive.

Although, Indonesian labor laws protect its citizen and clearly state that employee who worked pass their shift getting compensated accordingly. However, in the facts, "Loyalty" often offer convenient shield that "protect" the company from paying their due bills. Does want to work for the sake of "teamwork"? Let me show you the door... the HR says.

Not to mention after Covid there are more company that can outsource their labors to "tier 3 hamlet" since some job does not require much of interaction and can be done remotely. Who is going to pass out such enticing offers? Lower wage and same work ethics instead of hiring in office employee.

So... What is the employee's option? Upgrading skills require times, effort and money and not everyone has the ability to do so. Remote working become more of "feeding frenzy" amongst hundreds if not thousands of employees for breadcrumbs. Freelancing only reward the genius and experienced workers. What does average joe can do?

The data speaks for itself more people are hired in informal sectors with little to none benefits and lack of safety net or if they lucky have micro business on their own and on this slow economy pray for the best if the average joe does not job hugging their "comfy" formal workplace with extra burden placed on the survived burned out and stressed employees.

In the ends, there are many things happens to create this work climate. I hope and wish the readers be it employee or employer to consider their actions in the meantime. The market will correct itself for example, rehiring started in the IT industry and many work still require human to interact with it. Let us pray for the best and hope 2026 will become better years instead of blaming each other for the bad market.