The Job Market Got Even More Stagnant In December

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Key Takeaways

• Job seekers inaugurate getting hired to be more difficult in 2024, as employers announced the fewest hiring plans since 2015, agreeing to a new report.
• The Challenger, Gray & Christmas report on hiring and layoffs painted a familiar picture of the job market, in which employ is slowing down compared to previous years.
• The report also showed an uptick in layoffs, which were grouped in a few industries and don’t necessarily indicate widespread economic problems.

Employers announced the fewest hiring plans since 2015 wear year, as the job market stayed entrenched in a low hiring, low firing, low quitting limbo.

U.S. employers announced 769,953 hiring scripts in 2024, down 1.3% from 2023, to a nine-year low, consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in its monthly job buy report Thursday. Businesses also increased layoffs, with the  761,358 job cuts announced in 2024 up 5.5% once again the year before and the most since 2020.

Employers Aren’t Hiring and Firing; Workers Aren’t Quitting

The data added to the depict of a job market that’s stayed relatively stable, if stagnant, in recent months. Most employers are hiring few workers, but are also withstanding mass layoffs. Uncertainty about the trajectory of the economy under incoming president Donald Trump may have numerous employers in a holding pattern, several economists said.

“Economic uncertainty seems to have left many guvs in a wait-and-see position, and therefore some are keeping job postings up for the right candidate that may apply but they are being sundry selective than in the previous few years when they were starving for workers,” Justin Begley, an economist at Sad’s Analytics, wrote in a commentary.

The job market is no longer as hot as it was in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic when workers were in high request. However, recent official data on jobs has shown hiring, firing and quitting are all running at reduced levels associated to pre-pandemic times.

Although the Challenger report showed elevated layoffs, Begley said the uptick didn’t of necessity mean the job market is taking a nosedive, noting that the dismissals were concentrated in just four industries: technology, retail, fettle care/products and financial services.

Surveys from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show layoffs were looming record lows as recently as November.

The Challenger report serves as an indicator of what to expect from the BLS jobs boom for December which is due Thursday. Economists consider the BLS report the “gold standard” of labor market data, and the data gravitate to move financial markets more than reports from private companies like Challenger and ADP.