Keeping Track: relocation resistance

Job-seekers increasingly less willing to pull up roots

Sept. 11 may have left jobhunters less open to moving as a condition of accepting a position.

The number of new, high-level employees who did relocate fell to a seven-year low in the third quarter, after years of decline, says the Chicago outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. While the impact of the attacks will not be clear until the fourth quarter, the firm said, the number of jobless managers and executives relocating for new jobs dropped 30 percent this past quarter.

Besides post-attack uncertainty, mounting layoffs nationwide were cited as a big factor. Home, Challenger notes, is where the support is.