Record number of Americans dissatisfied with their pay, survey shows

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Americans are growing less inclined to switch jobs even as dissatisfaction with pay and career prospects deepens and the minimum salary they’re willing to accept reaches a new high, recent data show from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 

By the numbers:

• The share of people who said they searched for a job in the past four weeks fell to 22.5% from 23.8% in November 2025, with the steepest declines among those under 45 and women.
• Satisfaction dropped across pay, benefits, and promotion opportunities—down 3.3, 0.6, and 3.1 percentage points, respectively—with pay and promotion satisfaction at their lowest levels since March 2014.
• The likelihood of moving to a new employer slipped 1.4 percentage points to 9.7%, the lowest since March 2021, driven by workers without a college degree.
• The average reservation wage rose to a record $84,762 in March, with the biggest increases among men and college-educated respondents.

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Current job market

Dig deeper:

American employers added a surprisingly strong 178,000 new jobs last month, rebounding from a dismal February. And the unemployment rate dipped to 4.3%.

The Labor Department reported that hiring marked a turnaround from the loss of 133,000 jobs in February. The job gains were about three times what economists had forecast. But uncertainty surrounding the war with Iran — and its impact on energy prices — is clouding the outlook for the labor market.

U.S. added 178K jobs in March, beating expectations

MarketWatch reporter Greg Robb joins LiveNOW's Mike Pache to discuss the March jobs report. 

The unemployment rate was down from 4.4% in February. That is partly because the labor force — those working and looking for work — dropped by 396,000 in March so fewer people were competing for jobs. In fact, the percentage of people in the labor force dropped to 61.9% last month, the lowest since November 2021.

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Health care companies added 76,400 jobs last month, boosted by the return of 31,000 Kaiser Permanente employees to work after the end of a strike in February. Factories added 15,000 jobs last month but have still shed jobs for 14 of the last 16 months. Construction companies added 26,000 jobs, probably partly because of warmer weather last month.

The U.S. job market has been in a slump over the past year. Most economists say the impact of the war and higher energy prices was probably not fully reflected in the March jobs numbers.