2016 looks like the year of the turnover. A record 90% of currently employed IT professionals reported that they would pack up and give their two weeks notice for something that they considered a “better” opportunity.

What’s considered a “better” opportunity to those in the tech space? Apparently stability and how exciting the work is doesn’t matter as much to today’s job seekers. Stability historically has been in our top three, but in the past couple of years it’s nearly dropped from the top ten. It seems employees are no longer looking for a company to retire at – as long as they are getting great pay and perks now.

Although salary is the number one reason when considering a new job, only 38% of those considering leaving their employer list salary as the main reason. Other top reasons include lack of work-life balance and a dead-end job path. Work-life balance hasn’t even shown up on survey’s from years’ gone by and now its jumped into the #2 spot.



With the high value now being placed on work-life balance, it’s no surprise that the reported #1 best perk an employer can offer is Flextime or Telecommuting, followed by extra cash (bonus) and extra vacation to use that cash. Unsurprisingly, no mention of those fun little “required” company gatherings HR loves to claim keeps employees happy (hint: they’d rather just take the money than free ice cream).

Data taken from the 2016 PROTECH Surveys.