By ronstik @ Adobe Stock
The roaring job market that followed the resumption of normalcy after Democrats’ Covid lockdowns drove down the economy has begun to slow. Jeanne Whalen reports in The Wall Street Journal:
Americans’ once-in-a-generation job market has come to an end.
The red-hot hiring and rock-bottom unemployment that helped millions of workers find new gigs, boost their wages and reinvent their careers are giving way to more prosaic times. While the market is still healthy by many measures, signs of difficulty are creeping in.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1% last month—the first time it has crossed above 4% since 2021. That’s still low by historical measures, but it’s up from 3.4% early last year. Workers have stopped quitting jobs at a frenzied pace, and college grads are having a hard time breaking into the market at all. The number of open positions for every unemployed person is back to the prepandemic level of 1.2, down from over 2 in 2022.
And while the risk of getting laid off is still low, hiring has fallen beneath its pre-Covid level.
Many economists see a job market that has come back into balance, though some worry that conditions could continue worsening.
“The labor market cooled back to a strong place. This is a good labor market. But it’s not clear if the cooling is done,” said Claudia Sahm, chief economist at New Century Advisors, an investment firm.
Read more here.
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