The opportunity to job hop is not as universal as you might think. Until fairly recently I also had the false impression that anyone could do it to achieve a pa

The opportunity to job hop is not as universal as you might think. Until fairly recently I also had the false impression that anyone could do it to achieve a pay raise. There are plenty of occupations and industries that preclude job hopping. 1. Company towns, heavy industries, monopsony; many regions have one large employer or customer offering a variety of jobs to the inhabitants. Think: auto workers, chicken farmers. There is nobody else in the region to buy their labor or product, so unless an individual moves, they cannot change jobs without retraining and/or liquidating their assets. 2. Ultra-specialists. There are many occupations where turnover is low and the total number of people in the field is low. Compensation may be high due to a scarcity of qualified applicants, but the overall number of positions may be low. Changing jobs in a region might be exceptionally difficult since there may only be a total of a dozen jobs for a given region. Example: speech pathologists, radiographers, elevator repairers. 3. Middle management. Once someone enters the ranks of middle management, job hopping can be destructive to a career. Instead, it is expected that a manager will move to different departments. A middle manager or company officer is expected to quantifiably add value to a company. If you look at the successful managers in tech, you will find most have only been managers at 2 or 3 companies in total, with a tenure of at least 5 years at each.