As you get older, job hopping starts to come with a lot more costs. It's easy when you're young and have nothing more to hold you in one place than the cost of breaking your apartment lease.
Once you have a family you'll find that they are not excited about moving every few years and having to pack up, abandon all their friends, go to a new school, spouse find a new job, find a new house, find new childcare, unpack, etc. Can still work if you live in an area with a lot of jobs, but not very practical if you're in areas where job-hopping implies moving.
People used to be more willing to do this, but that was at a time when most households had one working partner and one at home taking care of the house and kids. Most people's lives are more complicated now, and moving is a lot more hassle.
> Once you have a family you'll find that they are not excited about moving every few years and having to pack up, abandon all their friends, go to a new school, spouse find a new job, find a new house, find new childcare, unpack, etc.
This is the reason tech professionals worldwide are resisting the Return-To-Office (RTO) mandate. The vision is an industry free of this unnecessary hindrance. It's not solely a hurdle for older individuals seeking a career switch, but it extends to anyone committed to their families and communities. It's also a significant concern for individuals with disabilities, who have tailored their homes to accommodate their needs, and students who cannot continue their education from overseas.
Regardless, relocation is always stressful and costly. In essence, job transitions come with this hefty toll, which employers sometimes exploit to exert additional pressure on employees before they resign. This is particularly true in towns where the industry's potential employers are scarce — sectors like robotics, space, automotive, and similar are prime examples.
A person can endure considerable work hardships before deciding to uproot their family and relocate to a foreign country, starting from scratch. Imagine grappling with no credit history, a lack of local language proficiency, no familiar community, no personal vehicle, no trusted family doctors — essentially, nothing. For those working in sectors like aerospace, opportunities in most countries are restricted to one or possibly two employers. This keeps employees locked into toxic workplaces and helps neither the worker nor the company which can become complacent and feels no pressure to act right.
The remedy is remote work. Global, ideally. But regional is enough.
The things you mentioned are only relevant if you relocate.
If you job hop somewhere close to where you live, or you are job hopping into remote work, all the hassle of moving your family is not an issue.
There are still some downsides, for example, you might get X% higher salary (something you know upfront), but instead of having 4-5 hours of work with autonomy, few meetings easy-going colleagues, you might get annoying people, boring work, micromanagement, and endless meeting (which is something you can usually only know for sure after switching)...
It also seems like you need to "cram" for the university-final-like interviews most companies seem to employ. "Ooh you don't remember how to code a dynamic programming algorithm that you haven't used in 15 years to solve this contrived scenario of a person hopping on frogs? That's gonna be a no from us dawg!"
Fun fact is that I didn't even make up that scenario, I literally didn't get an offer at Zillow because of it.
Once you have a family you'll find that they are not excited about moving every few years and having to pack up, abandon all their friends, go to a new school, spouse find a new job, find a new house, find new childcare, unpack, etc. Can still work if you live in an area with a lot of jobs, but not very practical if you're in areas where job-hopping implies moving.
People used to be more willing to do this, but that was at a time when most households had one working partner and one at home taking care of the house and kids. Most people's lives are more complicated now, and moving is a lot more hassle.