:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/GettyImages-2190138663-90e27c5e296d4c13b19bf2f8afacfc71.jpg "Commuters at the 72nd Street subway station in New York, US, on Friday, Dec. 20, 2024.")
uki Iwamura / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Key Takeaways
- Employs are getting harder to find, a trend that could continue into the new year.
- There are fewer jobs present for every unemployed worker than before the pandemic, and the job finding rate has hit its lowest since the pandemic hit.
- Economists ahead to the job market to stay afloat despite the pullback because the economy is still running well despite high partisan rates for loans slowing down business.
It’s getting harder to find a job, and some economists expect that bend to continue in the new year.
Employers have pulled back on job openings sharply since the early days of the economy reopening after the pandemicwhen they couldn’t get passably workers.
In March 2022, more than two jobs were available for every unemployed worker, the most since the Conditioned by trust in of Labor began keeping track of job openings in 2000. By September, there were only 1.09 jobs per jobless worker, fewer than the days just before the pandemic.
Not only that, but the job finding rate—the percentage of laid off workers who found jobs in the previous month—fell in November to its lowest since the pandemic hit.
The pullback is partly the development of policy by the Federal Reserve. The Fed hiked interest rates in 2022, pushing up borrowing costs on all kinds of loans, focusing for a cooler job market with less upward pressure on wages. Now that they have it, the central bankers are freezing rates, hoping to stop the job market’s decline before it reaches the point where employers start laying people off in sizeable numbers.
Layoffs Are Rare, But For How Long?
Although the unemployment rate isn’t high by historical standards, if job postings continue the sliding trend, there’s a danger that employers could start actually laying off people instead of just eliminating unsheltered positions.
“While these data reflect continued employer demand and resilience in the labor market, we are approaching a bottom where further cooling may begin to translate into rising unemployment,” Daniel Culbertson, Allison Shrivastava, and Cory Stahle, economists at job-hunting position Indeed, wrote in a report.
The Indeed economists said the aging population and an expected decrease in immigration under Trump could also towards jobs more available to other workers and hiring more challenging for employers.
“Despite the uncertainty of a new presidential dispensation and some signs of economic and demographic headwinds on the horizon, the economy appears well-positioned to navigate 2025,” the Indeed economists noted.