U.S. — In the first quarter of 2026, U.S. workers who switched jobs saw their after-tax wages grow by 8% year-over-year, compared to 5% for those who stayed in their roles, resulting in a 3-percentage-point wage growth gap—the narrowest in seven years, according to Bank of America Institute data.

Bank of America’s data, based on anonymized internal deposit accounts, shows the wage premium for job switchers has steadily declined since 2022, when the gap reached 11 percentage points during the peak of the Great Resignation, with switchers earning nearly 18% wage growth versus 7% for stayers.

ADP data corroborates the trend, reporting that the job-switching wage premium reached a record low of 1.9 percentage points in early 2026—the smallest since ADP began tracking the metric in 2020.

Former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell described the 2025–2026 labor market as a “low-hire, low-fire” environment.

The narrowing gap reflects diverging outcomes across generations. In Q1 2026, Gen X and Baby Boomer workers who remained in their jobs saw steady pay increases, while those in the same generations who switched jobs experienced flat or declining wages, according to Bank of America Institute data. Among the top 5% of earners, staying at one’s job unambiguously yielded higher pay than switching.

Gen Z workers, however, continued to benefit from job switching more than other groups. More than one in four Gen Z workers changed employers in Q1 2026—a rate more than twice that of Millennials and over three times that of Baby Boomers. Gen Z job switchers saw more than four times the wage growth of their peers who stayed in place. Nevertheless, their wage gains have declined by approximately 20 percentage points compared to 2022 levels.

Broad demographic shifts underpin these trends. Nearly one in four U.S. workers is now 55 or older, and this share is growing nearly twice as fast as overall employment. The average age of a new hire in the U.S. rose to 42 in 2025, up from 40.5 in 2022 and 40 in 2016, according to Revelio Labs. Over the same period, Gen Z’s share of new hires fell from 14.9% in 2022 to 8.8% in 2025, while hiring inflows for workers under 25 dropped by 45% between 2019 and 2026.