diff --git a/crates/typst-cli/src/args.rs b/crates/typst-cli/src/args.rs
index 5ec56555e..49761d8f2 100644
--- a/crates/typst-cli/src/args.rs
+++ b/crates/typst-cli/src/args.rs
@@ -225,7 +225,7 @@ pub struct SharedArgs {
     pub package_storage_args: PackageStorageArgs,
 
     /// Number of parallel jobs spawned during compilation,
-    /// defaults to number of CPUs.
+    /// defaults to number of CPUs. Setting it to 1 disables parallelism.
     #[clap(long, short)]
     pub jobs: Option<usize>,
 }
diff --git a/crates/typst-cli/src/world.rs b/crates/typst-cli/src/world.rs
index 7cec41011..bb491c029 100644
--- a/crates/typst-cli/src/world.rs
+++ b/crates/typst-cli/src/world.rs
@@ -60,7 +60,11 @@ impl SystemWorld {
     pub fn new(command: &SharedArgs) -> Result<Self, WorldCreationError> {
         // Set up the thread pool.
         if let Some(jobs) = command.jobs {
-            rayon::ThreadPoolBuilder::new().num_threads(jobs).build_global().ok();
+            rayon::ThreadPoolBuilder::new()
+                .num_threads(jobs)
+                .use_current_thread()
+                .build_global()
+                .ok();
         }
 
         // Resolve the system-global input path.