The shell resumes a job in the background before giving its process group the terminal again.

Job control moves terminal foreground ownership between groups

Interactive job control lets a shell manage process groups that share a controlling terminal. The terminal has one foreground process group at a time, while other jobs can run or remain stopped in the background. Foreground ownership, running state, and the shell’s job table are distinct. A background job is not automatically suspended, and a stopped job has not necessarily terminated. ...

September 27, 2027 · 5 min · XB Field Notes