Workers who changed jobs still show stronger pay growth than those who stayed, according to two major US trackers. That is useful evidence about the labour market. It is a much weaker basis for telling a particular household what resigning would do to its income. The people counted as movers have already made, and survived, a transition that many other workers cannot readily attempt.
September’s data support a distinction between the reward observed among movers and the availability of opportunities to move. For investors analysing consumer spending or employers’ wage costs, both sides matter. A favourable outcome for a smaller or more selective group need not translate into equally strong income growth across the workforce.
Two trackers observe different pay packets
The Atlanta Fed’s Wage Growth Tracker put September wage growth at 4.7% for job switchers and 3.4% for stayers. These are three-month moving averages of median twelve-month changes in individual hourly wages. Both measures eased from August. The comparison shows a level gap, not evidence that the gap is widening every month.
ADP’s September release supplies independent payroll evidence: median annual base-pay growth was 4.8% for job changers and 3.0% for stayers in its private-sector data. The direction is consistent with the Atlanta comparison. The magnitudes are not directly interchangeable, because the pay concepts and samples differ.
ADP explained its expanded measures in September: base pay comes from contracted pay rates, while gross pay adds bonuses, commissions, tips and other earnings. An hourly-wage tracker and a contracted-base-pay measure therefore answer related but different questions. Mixing either with a gross-pay series can produce a misleading comparison.
For a household, cash income depends on more than a quoted wage rate. Hours worked, variable compensation, employment gaps and deductions affect the money available for spending. A higher hourly wage can coexist with weaker annual earnings if paid hours fall. That is an accounting possibility, not a measured outcome for all movers in these reports.
The observed movers have already crossed a selection hurdle
The wage-growth gap compares different groups of people. It does not observe the same individual simultaneously staying in one job and taking another. Workers with an attractive offer, transferable skills or the ability to tolerate a transition may be more likely to move. Others may stay because of care responsibilities, location, benefits or a lack of suitable vacancies.
Those are plausible selection channels, not quantified explanations of September’s gap. The important limitation is that the data do not isolate the pay change caused solely by changing employers. Subtracting the stayer figure from the mover figure cannot turn an observed cohort difference into a guaranteed personal switching bonus.
The Atlanta methodology adds specific boundaries. Its switcher category includes changes of occupation or industry, as well as recent changes of employer or job duties. It is therefore broader than an uncomplicated external job move. The address-based survey also loses people who move home, limiting what it captures about geographically mobile workers.
Matching wages twelve months apart improves comparison of individual pay over time, but requires observations in both periods. The tracker consequently differs from a survey of every unemployed job seeker or every person considering resignation. The distinction is especially relevant when the question is access to a new job rather than the wage experience of observed workers.
The strongest counterargument is that a persistent mover advantage still contains real information. Outside opportunities can be valuable, and selection does not prove that switching has no causal benefit. The disciplined interpretation is that the statistics identify where realised pay growth is stronger while leaving the size of an individual’s attainable improvement unresolved.
A low quitting rate limits how widely the advantage can spread
The latest available JOLTS release for August, published September 29, recorded a quits rate of 1.9% and a hires rate of 3.3%. These are August flow measures, separate from September wage observations. BLS describes quits as an indicator of workers’ willingness or ability to leave, a broader concept than confidence alone.
A pay gap and subdued voluntary movement can therefore coexist. Some successful movers may obtain better pay while many others lack a practical opening. It would be an error to interpret the wage figures as evidence that everyone has regained bargaining power, or to interpret low quits as proof that no employer faces a retention problem.
For consumer-facing businesses, the conditional implication is uneven income support. Customers able to secure better-paid roles may gain spending room; customers unable to move depend more heavily on their existing employer’s pay and hours. The aggregate reports do not reveal which retailers or lenders serve each group, so they cannot establish a company-specific sales or credit forecast.
Employers face a related allocation problem. A business may need to raise an offer for a hard-to-fill role without increasing every employee’s compensation at the same pace. Whether that produces a material cost increase depends on recruitment volume, staff turnover and the share of payroll affected. The mover premium alone cannot supply those missing quantities.
Broader hiring and voluntary mobility alongside durable wage gains would suggest that the observed advantage is becoming accessible to more workers. Pay gaps persisting without wider movement would support a more selective interpretation. The economically meaningful question is not simply whether movers earn more, but how many households can obtain and sustain the opportunity represented by that comparison.