Most people stay stuck in jobs they hate because of financial fear. But the irony is that the job you’re clinging to for financial security could end tomorrow with little or no warning. And if that single paycheck is your only source of income, you don’t have security. You have the illusion of it.
I know this firsthand. Not once, but twice.
The first time was in 2003. My company merged with another, and my position was eliminated. I loved that job. I didn’t want to leave. But what I wanted didn’t matter. The new structure didn’t include me, and that was that. I was devastated. I thought if I worked hard and did good work, I’d be safe. I wasn’t.
The second time was recent. The company restructured and moved my team overseas. I was given one month’s notice. This time, I hated the job. I’d been miserable for years. And honestly, I was relieved. I’d stayed in that job far longer than I should have because I was clinging to the security of a paycheck. And then it was gone anyway.
Two layoffs. Two decades. Two completely different experiences. One job I loved and wanted to keep. One job I hated and should have left years earlier. But the outcome was the same both times: the security I thought I had didn’t actually exist.
The first layoff taught me that even when you love your job and do everything right, it can still be taken away. The second taught me that staying somewhere out of fear doesn’t protect you either. Whether you love the job or hate it, whether you want to stay or want to leave, the result is the same—your employment is not as secure as it feels.
The Broken Social Contract
It wasn’t always like this.
There was a time when the relationship between companies and employees operated under a different set of rules. If you worked hard, stayed loyal, and did your job well, the company was expected to take care of you in return. You’d get steady raises, promotions as you gained experience, and a pension when you retired. And most importantly, you’d have job security. Layoffs were rare and typically happened only when a company was genuinely struggling to survive.
That was how the system worked for decades. But in the 1980s, the rules began to change.
A concept known as “shareholder primacy,” introduced in the 1970s by economist Milton Friedman, took hold. The idea was simple: a corporation’s primary responsibility is to maximize profits for its owners. Before that, companies had balanced the needs of employees, customers, communities, and shareholders.
In 1981, General Electric CEO Jack Welch embraced this philosophy and made it his mission to maximize returns for shareholders above all else. Employees, communities, and long-term stability became secondary to one goal: increasing the stock price.
Welch didn’t just talk about it. He built systems to enforce it. One of his most well-known policies was “rank and yank,” where employees were ranked each year and the bottom 10% were let go, regardless of whether the company was profitable or those employees were performing adequately. It didn’t matter if you were doing fine. If you weren’t in the top tier, you were out.
There was also strong financial incentive for CEOs to prioritize shareholder value. In 1965, CEOs earned about 20 times what their average workers made. By 2001, that ratio had grown to 376 times. This wasn’t because CEOs were suddenly working hundreds of times harder. It was because compensation was no longer tied to the long-term health of the company or the well-being of its employees. It was tied to stock performance.
Since the fastest way to boost stock price is to cut costs, and the biggest cost on most corporate balance sheets is labor, employees became just another line item on a list of costs to be managed. If you’re an employee, it pays to remember that.
The Shift of Risk
The broken social contract didn’t stop with how companies treated employees while they were working. It also reshaped what happened in retirement.
For decades, companies offered pensions—guaranteed income for life after retirement. If you stayed loyal and did your job, you could count on a steady monthly payment. That began to change in the early 1980s with the introduction of the 401(k), which was originally meant to supplement pensions. But that’s not how it played out. By 1985, more workers were enrolled in these new plans than in traditional pensions. And because it was cheaper for companies, pensions quickly became a relic.
With a pension, the company carried the risk, promising a specific payout regardless of how the market performed. With a 401(k) that responsibility shifted entirely to employees. This meant that if the market dropped before retirement, it became the employee’s problem to solve. What was framed as a benefit was actually a transfer of risk from the employer to the employee.
And when you place that alongside the rise of layoffs, restructurings, and shareholder-first decision making, the pattern becomes impossible to ignore. The system no longer prioritizes stability for employees. It prioritizes flexibility for companies.
The old social contract said: You give us your loyalty and hard work, and we’ll give you a stable career and take care of you in retirement.
The new reality is different. You give your loyalty and hard work, and you’re kept as long as it’s profitable. The moment it’s not, you’re gone.
The inherent problem isn’t with how companies choose to do their business. It’s in thinking that working for a company is secure. Going to work believing that the old social contract is in place is entirely different from going to work knowing that it could change tomorrow.
I wish someone had told me this earlier. Not to make me paranoid or cynical, but to help me see clearly. Because the decisions I made about staying, and the fear that was keeping me in place, were based on a version of reality that hadn’t existed for years.
Stay tuned for next week’s post, where I’ll write about the risk of relying on a single source of income.
If you’re starting to question your own job security, my book You Don’t Have to Stay walks through how to think about leaving—without fear running the show. Click here to learn more about it.
One of the hardest lessons is realizing that a paycheck and security are not always the same thing. Fear has a way of convincing us that staying put is the safer option, even when the situation is already changing underneath us.
Great post and my experience as well over the years.