A 7-Country Survey Asked Workers One Question — Half Gave an Answer Their Bosses Won't Like

For two years the defining workplace behavior has been holding on. Recruiters call it “job hugging”: you keep the job you have, you do not test a shaky market, you wait. Employers have quietly built their plans on it, on the assumption that scared workers are loyal workers who do not need raises to stay put.

That assumption just took a measurable hit. Morgan McKinley’s 2026 Workplace Trends Report surveyed more than 3,200 workers and employers across seven countries about their plans for the rest of the year, and one question produced the number that should be keeping managers up at night (Inc.).

Asked about their intentions, 49% of employees said they plan to actively look for a new job in the next six months (Inc.). Half the workforce, hands off the job they were supposedly hugging. And their bosses appear to be planning for a different reality entirely: 63% of employers in the same survey said they have no plans to reduce headcount in 2026, a stance that reads as stability from the corner office and as stagnation from everywhere else (Inc.).

Why the sudden urge to leave? The survey’s own pay data answers that. 70% of employees received no pay increase at all in the first half of 2026, up from 65% a year earlier (Inc.). Job hugging was always a trade: workers accepted flat pay in exchange for safety. Two years in, the flat pay is still here, groceries are not flat, and the safety half of the bargain feels thinner every layoff cycle. A frozen paycheck reads differently in year one than in year two. In year two it reads as a decision.

The other mismatch hiding in the data

Pay is the trigger, but the survey found a second gap between what employers won and what workers wanted. 47% of employers say they hit their goal of getting staff into the office more than three weekdays, while 45% of employees say they would prefer to be in-person only one or two days a week (Inc.). And flexibility is not a soft perk in this data: 65% of employees said it directly influenced whether they accepted or stayed in a job (Inc.). Employers spent 2026 winning the attendance fight, and may spend 2027 discovering what it cost them. “Employees are weighing job security, flexibility, trust in technology, opportunities for growth and a sense of belonging,” Morgan McKinley’s Kurt Schreurs said of how people now decide where to work (Inc.).

Notice what happens when you put the two halves of the survey side by side. Companies believe the calm is loyalty. The workers say the calm is a queue.

The employers who do see it coming are already competing on exactly these terms. In the same report, 59% of employers described recent hiring as competitive, 49% named flexible work patterns as key to attracting talent, and 45% pointed to career growth as essential for landing the best people (Inc.). Read those numbers as a preview of the counteroffers: the companies that skipped raises are about to bid against companies advertising the two things their departing workers wanted most. Among workers, 70% named flexibility their most prized benefit (Inc.). None of this is hidden. It is in the same report, a few pages apart.

So here is the useful bottom line, whichever side of the desk you sit on. If you manage people and have skipped raises for two years while tightening office rules, the survey says half your team is already pricing the exit, and the fix is the unglamorous one: pay reviews and flexibility, before the counteroffers start. If you are one of the workers planning to look, you are not restless or ungrateful, you are half the market, and you are moving at the same time as everyone else, so the advantage goes to whoever prepares before they search. Either way, the job-hugging era had a price tag attached, and in 2026 the bill came due.