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Returning to work for a former employer, known as boomeranging, is back in vogue.
In March, boomerang employees made up 35% of new hires, up from 31% a year earlier, according to payroll provider ADP.
“The trend of workers returning to previous employers is continuing,” Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist, told Yahoo Finance. “It’s persistent.”
For employers, “there’s a lot of uncertainty and caution in the labor market, which is showing up in the increase in boomerang hires,” she said. “Employers are trying to get as much efficiency from their workforce as possible. And sometimes that means hiring and onboarding someone who's already familiar with the turf. They know the worker, the worker knows them.”
The boomerang trend is even bigger if you count federal employees returning to their former jobs. Trump administration officials across the government are scrambling to rehire experienced workers who were forced out this spring under DOGE’s staff-slashing initiative.
More than 460 laid-off employees, for example, at the US Department of Health and Human Services, were reportedly sent notices last week that they are being rehired.
Boomerang hiring comes in waves. It skyrocketed during the summer of 2020 as companies sprinted to bring back workers laid off during the pandemic shutdown that spring.
Then, in 2022, millions of workers quit their jobs during the Great Resignation. In March 2022, the quit rate was 3%, with 4.5 million workers voluntarily leaving their jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The impetus in many cases was money. Wage growth for job switchers surged, as employers enticed workers with sweet compensation packages. Hardly anyone was looking back. Boomerang workers as a share of new hires sank to a low of 26%, per ADP.
Now, far fewer people are quitting their jobs. Quits have dropped to 2% or 3.19 million workers in April. At the same time, boomerang rehiring has been steadily rising.
This hiring trend has been gathering steam across virtually all industries, Richardson said, especially in media, publishing, software development, and technology.
Other factors spurring the trend include a domino effect from the housing market. “People are just less willing than they used to be to move for jobs,” Richardson said. “With the housing market having cooled down because of higher interest rates, higher house prices, and the ability to work remotely, workers are just not as likely to move for a job. So if you're not willing to move, maybe going back to an employer that's in your local area is a stronger option than it would've been 20 years ago.”
