Your Employees Can’t Afford to Quit, But That Doesn’t Mean They’re Staying Happy
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Monster published its 2026 Cost of Living Report this morning, and the top-line number is what you’d expect after three years of nearly identical surveys: 93% of workers say their pay isn’t keeping up with the cost of living. The figure has barely moved since 2024.
I wouldn’t spend much energy on the 93%. People have felt underpaid relative to prices for years, and a feelings-based survey question will always skew high. The number that actually tells you something is 3%.
Monster found that 74% of workers are actively looking for a higher-paying job right now, up sharply from 56% a year ago. Of everyone in that search, only 3% have actually landed and accepted a new role. Nearly three-quarters of the workforce wants out for better pay, and almost none of them are getting it.
Put that next to the employer side of Monster’s data, and the picture sharpens. Just 7% of workers got an inflation-related raise this year, down from 9% in 2025 and 11% in 2024. When a raise does show up, it’s usually small: 71% say their most recent increase came in under 3%.
Employers have largely stopped using pay bumps to keep people, and the reason is simple: they don’t have to. Monster’s own respondents explain why. 58% report it’s harder to find a job as companies cut costs, and 41% are worried about their own job security. When workers believe they have nowhere better to go, raises are often the first line item that quietly disappears.
The financial strain is showing up everywhere else in the data. 85% of workers have dipped into savings this year, up from 75% in 2025, and 42% say they’ve used a significant portion of what they had set aside. Monster’s report puts it plainly: “an overwhelming 85% of workers have been forced to tap into their savings to stay afloat, including 42% who say they have used a significant portion of their savings.” Another 38% are leaning on credit or loans, and 34% are cutting back on retirement contributions to cover today’s bills. 42% are even considering a second job.
If you’re managing a team right now, don’t read this as a reason to sit tight on comp. Workers who can’t afford to quit aren’t automatically workers who are satisfied. I wrote a few weeks ago about the households already being priced out of a single income, and Monster’s numbers say that pressure is building, not easing. A team that feels trapped rather than valued shows up in slower output, quieter disengagement, and the first flight risk the moment the market loosens even slightly.
If you’re the one job hunting in this market, precision beats volume. Chasing a raise on the logic of “my rent went up” rarely moves an employer, because your landlord’s problem isn’t your employer’s problem. The workers who land the rare 3% outcome tend to target a small number of roles and lead with specific, measurable value instead of applying broadly and hoping something sticks. Precision matters even more right now, since a meaningful share of postings turn out to be fake or already filled instead of real openings. If you want to spend that effort on roles that are actually live, see what’s currently open here.
Staffing your team doesn’t have to be hard.
Reach out and see how we can help.
Samsung’s Chip Boom Is Bankrolling Layoffs in Its Phone and TV Business
Samsung confirmed layoffs across its US consumer electronics business this week, tied to a headquarters move that explains more than the layoff number does on its own.
Samsung Electronics America, the division that sells phones, TVs, and appliances, is relocating its headquarters from Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey to Texas. The company confirmed 739 roles in Englewood Cliffs are affected by the move. Most of those employees received relocation offers. Some were let go instead. Samsung said the move is meant to “foster stronger collaboration and optimize the organization by bringing more teams together within a growing technology and AI ecosystem.” About 100 more workers were laid off at Samsung’s Plano, Texas office, including staff in the mobile division, and a separate Samsung IT affiliate flagged 179 additional roles that could be cut in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey, also tied to the Texas relocation.
The Englewood Cliffs office is barely a year old. Samsung opened it in September 2025 to replace the Ridgefield Park headquarters it had used since 1992. Less than a year later, roughly 62% of the roughly 1,200 people who work there are being told to move to Texas or find something else.
The split between Samsung’s two divisions explains why. Its chip division is on pace for close to a 19-fold jump in quarterly profit, driven by AI demand for high-bandwidth memory, while its mobile division, the one absorbing these cuts, is expected to post its first-ever loss. The same AI boom paying off for the chip side is raising input costs that squeeze the consumer side, and the consumer side is losing that fight.
What this means if you’re building a hiring plan right now:
A relocation offer isn’t automatically job security. Most of the 739 affected New Jersey employees received one, but moving a household from the New York metro to Dallas-Fort Worth isn’t realistic for a lot of families with mortgages and schools. If a candidate tells you they’re weighing a company relocation, treat it as a deadline they’re facing, not a settled outcome.
Corporate real estate and headcount plans can turn over fast. Samsung opened a brand-new office in September 2025 and is emptying most of it a year later. Whatever headcount plan you’re building for the next six to twelve months should assume more volatility than last year’s version did.
AI cost pressure is now cutting jobs on its own, separate from AI replacing work directly. Samsung’s mobile unit isn’t shedding staff because software took over their jobs. It’s shedding staff because the memory chips it needs cost more, and headcount is the line that moved to cover the gap. Oracle named AI directly in a layoff filing back in June for a similar reason: rising AI-related costs squeezing budgets elsewhere in the business. If your own compute or licensing costs are climbing, plan for that pressure to show up in staffing decisions before it forces one.
For employers still hiring through this stretch, a competitor retreating to safer ground is an opening, not a coincidence. If you need to move fast while another company is busy relocating its own team, our team can help you fill the gap.
