Back-Sitting: The Silent Crisis No One's Talking About

Welcome to the Back-Sitting Era

Your employees are showing up. Where you asked them to. As many days as you asked. They sit at their desks. They log into Zoom calls. But nobody's really there. Not really.

They're back-sitting.

Back-sitting is when people don't stay at their jobs because they want to, not because they're committed, but because they're terrified. They're sitting with their backs to the future, not looking forward, not steering. Just sitting. Waiting. Holding on.

And before you start rolling your eyes thinking this is just another made-up HR buzzword, let me hit you with some numbers that should make you very uncomfortable. You know, if you're not sitting with your back turned too ;)

In 2024, disengaged workers cost the global economy $438 billion. Not million. Billion. With nine zeros.

And:

• The US only created 73,000 new jobs in July 2025
• Companies announced 172,017 layoffs in February 2025 alone – the highest since the pandemic
• The "quit rate" has been hovering around 2% since early 2025, the lowest we've seen since 2016
• The number of job openings per unemployed person has dropped by half since March 2022

Translation? Your people are trapped. And they know it.

How Did We Get Here?

Five years ago, we were living through the Great Resignation. People were hopping from job to job, weighing offers, climbing the ladder by switching companies. It paid to move.

Not anymore.

For the first time in the last 10 years, staying pays the same as switching companies. Those who stayed got 4.6% raises, while job-hoppers only earned 0.2% more.

The golden age of job-hopping is over. Plus we're scared, too. All of us.

So what are people doing? They're staying. But they're not committing. They're not looking forward. They're back-sitting.

Why This Is Worse Than Anything We've Seen Before

At least with quiet quitting, people were still somewhat present. They did the minimum, sure, but they were looking ahead – even if ahead meant toward the exit.

Back-sitters aren't looking anywhere. They:

• Don't develop new skills (because what's the point, our jobs are going away anyway?)
• Don't take any initiative (because they can't see mid-term)
• Don't collaborate effectively (because they're just trying to survive, and they don't give a damn about anything)
• Don't steer their careers (and aren't even pretending to try)

They just EXIST.

And here's where it really hurts: 40% of workers will need significant retraining by 2030 to remain employable as AI reshapes the job market.

But you know what? Back-sitters aren't retraining themselves. They're not preparing. They're not looking ahead.

They're sitting there, backs to the future, watching their skills become obsolete in real-time, too paralyzed by fear to do anything about it.

What This Means for Organizations

Think you have a retention problem? You don't. You have a back-sitting problem.

Your retention numbers might look great on paper. People are staying! Yay! They're not engaged. Not productive. Not innovative. And definitely not preparing for what's coming.

And what's coming – AI transformation, skill obsolescence, organizational restructuring – requires people who are looking forward, not backward.

So What Do We Do?

Honestly? I don't have all the answers. Hmm, I've never actually written that before. But what I do know is that it's incredibly harmful to act like everything's fine just because people aren't quitting.

We urgently need to stop celebrating high retention rates and start asking ourselves harder questions.

Like, if there's a back-sitting epidemic, and this clearly (yes, I mean clearly in my opinion, but if you disagree, we're waiting for guest bloggers at info@y2y.hu :) ) has fear of the unknown paralyzing a portion of the workforce as its primary cause.

The same people, for example, that we don't train mandatorily, because we've been saying for ages that it's stupid. Is it really stupid? Your AI training, for instance – if you don't make it mandatory, how and especially WHEN will those who've been sitting with their backs to everything for nearly three whole years start moving along their grief curves?

And unlike quiet quitting, job-hopping, or any other workplace trend we've seen, this won't fix itself. It's going to get worse.

Because the longer people sit with their backs to the future, the harder it will be for them to turn around.