Amid a hard-to-read job market, many workers are staying put — but they aren’t happy about it, recent stories suggest.

“Job hugging,” a phenomenon in which workers hold onto their jobs partly out of fear for the market, may be causing problems for employers looking to up productivity in 2026. According to a recent MetLife report, only about half of employees said they were engaged at work, and 56% said they were staying at their job out of necessity.

But the engagement problem could be even worse than that, a January Gallup report showed. After peaking in 2020, worker engagement levels have only continued to plummet, according to the pollster: 31% of workers said they are engaged at work in 2025, compared to 36% in 2020.

Overall, workers are staying at jobs they don’t love and are lacking the resilience to manage expectations, other reports revealed. Read the stories below to see more on the employee stagnation problem and what employers can do to help.