The U.S. labor market is cooling off after months of rapid job gains, but some workers are feeling the slowdown more than others. Recent data published by Vanguard shows demand for higher-income employees is waning, painting a picture of a two-tier job market that has seen hiring flourish for blue-collar workers and languish for white-collar workers. Among the lowest-income earners — those making less than $55,000 annually — the hiring rate has remained above pre-pandemic levels, at 1.5%.
Tech companies slashed more than 47,000 jobs in April, a 58% decrease from the nearly 114,000 cuts announced during the same period the previous year, according to a separate analysis conducted by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "It does appear to be a bit of a rolling recession in the economy, with white-collar fields overall not contracting, but being very flaccid, so things growing either," Pollak said. "There's some white-collar stagnation.