How is the US job market right now?

Continued claims – the total number of Americans filing for ongoing unemployment benefits – hit 1.9 million the week of Jan. 11, a level not seen since 2018, when pandemic-driven job losses aren’t taken into account. More than 22% of unemployed Americans in December had been without a job at least six months, up from 20% the year prior.

Hiring rates are also down, hovering around 3.3% since June compared with 4.6% in 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Discounting the dramatic hiring dropoff amid early 2020 lockdowns, the last time hiring rates were this low was 2013, when the labor market was bouncing back from the Great Recession. 

It’s a time full of “winners and losers,” Berger said. While those who have jobs can largely consider their roles safe, with layoffs low by historical standards, job seekers face a much more challenging environment.

Part of that is due to timing. After a hot post-pandemic market triggered a spike in resignations, the workforce seems to have settled into their new roles, according to Brad Hershbein, a senior economist and deputy director of research at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. 

“A lot of the people who were going to find a new job, found one,” Hershbein said. And “a lot of businesses found the people that they needed, and don’t need any more right now. It’s the natural state of the cycle.”   

Companies have also become more cautious in the post-pandemic work environment and amid policy changes from the new presidential administration, experts told USA TODAY. Layoffs are down, but so are hiring and quit rates – a trend some labor economists call the “great stay.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/02/01/job-market-hiring-trends/77909818007/

Pretty much the worst hiring market since the Great Recession it seems like?