WASHINGTON — Businesses across the U.S. economy ramped up their hiring in September, defying surging interest rates, financial market turmoil, the ongoing threat of a government shutdown and an uncertain outlook to add the most jobs in any month since January. The hiring binge confounded expectations for a slowdown and added one more layer of complexity to the Federal Reserve’s high-wire effort to defeat inflation without causing a recession.
Responses to their job listings are 80% higher than they were a year and a half ago, she said, with some of that increase likely a result of widespread layoffs last year by tech companies. Another change from a year ago, she noted, is that even workers with tech skills are less able to job-hop for large raises. “People would jump off, get these real meaty increases,” she said. “And that’s changed. People are less inclined to take the risk.