Dive Brief:
- Almost 8 in 10 (79%) millennial knowledge workers are satisfied with their current role, but their loyalty isn’t guaranteed, especially if better pay, clearer growth paths or stronger learning opportunities are on the table, according to recent research by global tech career and training firm General Assembly.
- If hiring conditions improve, 49% of the 515 U.S. and UK millennial knowledge workers (aged 29-44) surveyed in December said they would actively begin looking for a new role. Managers are particularly likely to move as well as workers in hospitality, education and professional services.
- “Millennials aren’t disengaged — they’re pragmatic. They’re paying attention to the market and weighing whether their current role will support long-term growth,” GA wrote in a Jan. 13 post.
Dive Insight:
The message for employers is that if they want to retain experienced, mid-career talent once the job market picks up, they’ll have to provide learning opportunities, internal mobility and career path clarity — not just compensation, GA said.
The findings spell it out. Millennials who are satisfied with their job also said they have a clear path forward, don’t need to leave their company to advance and that their company would support reskilling for a new internal role.
“Career clarity doesn’t just boost engagement — it builds confidence in staying,” GA stressed.
Employees do have higher expectations than in the past, but meeting these expectations boosts retention, SHRM researchers found in a recent survey of U.S. employees and HR professionals.
For instance, among workers who said their employers were addressing their needs, 91% reported job satisfaction. Conversely, more than half of employees at organizations that didn’t do well at meeting workers’ needs said they were at least somewhat likely to leave their job within a year.
According to GA, job satisfaction is strongly connected to internal opportunity, a factor that’s been on everyone’s radar for a while. To counter low turnover and hiring freezes, many HR leaders have shifted their strategy from external hiring to internal mobility, prioritizing upskilling and reskilling, outplacement company Careerminds reported in September 2025.
Employees have also shifted their priorities, according to a January workforce trends report from Adecco. Tangible job security has overtaken personal fulfillment as the top retention factor, with workers now prioritizing stable income, job certainty and “robust” employer support for professional agility, the report said.
Yet, GA’s research found that 39% of employees believe their company overlooks internal candidates, indicating a gap between what employers say they intend to do and what gets implemented, GA noted.
One reason could be a lack of relevant information, the Adecco report suggested. Its research found that while nearly two-thirds of organizations struggle to transition workers into new internal roles, only a third invest in the data required to understand internal skills and capabilities.