The Job Market Is Frozen

Rogé Karma: “The answer is that two seemingly incompatible things are happening in the job market at the same time. Even as the unemployment rate has hovered around 4 percent for more than three years, the pace of hiring has slowed to levels last seen shortly after the Great Recession, when the unemployment rate was nearly twice as high. The percentage of workers voluntarily quitting their jobs to find new ones, a signal of worker power and confidence, has fallen by a third from its peak in 2021 and 2022 to nearly its lowest level in a decade.”

“The labor market is seemingly locked in place: Employees are staying put, and employers aren’t searching for new ones. And the dynamic appears to be affecting white-collar professions the most.”