I work as a programmer. Is it advisable to job hop every few years to look for salary increase especially if the current company is not giving raises in a timely manner? There are studies that say job hoppers make significantly more money after 10 years than people who stay at 1 company how true is this?
I am getting jealous because some of the new hires in our company are making bank.
Absolutely. It seems to be normal now to change your job every few years. It's often the only way to get a large salary increase or promotion. If you stay at the same company, you can probably expect a small raise (maybe not even enough to cover inflation), but if you change company, you can often get a large raise.
It would be good not to do it too often (so not every 6 months), but if you stay at a job for a few years, it shouldn't be a problem at all.
The truly sad thing is that this is necessary. Let's say you make X at your company, and I make X at my company, doing exactly the same work, we will both find it hard to get a 5% raise each. But if we both quit, then suddenly our companies need a replacement, so my current company hires you for 1.2X and your current company hires me for 1.2X. It's ridiculous and sad. But that's how it works.
I'd even be reticent to call it 'job hopping' these days - more of 'career progression'.
In my opinion it's undoubtably the best way to both increase your salary and to gain better experience along with work on projects you're specifically interested in.
I'd ask someone at interview about their work history if I saw a few shorter spells, but would be happy with an explanation that involved switching jobs for better pay or more interesting projects and technologies if it's justified appropriately.
It is fine to switch jobs if you are looking for better compensation and better projects as long as it doesn't become a long term pattern. If you have 5 different jobs in 5 different years, it's going to be a red flag to recruiters/hiring managers. If you want to do that, you are better of trying short term independent contract work.
My first two jobs out of college each lasted a bit over a year and I stuck around at my third job for 3 years. I was tempted to leave earlier but stuck around because I didn't want to look like a job hopper. After than I've found a job I've been happy with and been working there ever since.
While I mostly agree with the previous answers that this seems to be the way things are I feel like the comment to OP is important and one other thing:
