A hiring sign at a Deerfield, Ill., grocery store on July 25. In one indication of a softening labor market, employers are hiring at the slowest pace in a decade, excluding the pandemic shutdown. The U.S. labor market is beginning to show more signs of weaknesses.
, excluding the pandemic shutdown, job openings have slowed considerably though remain higher than before the pandemic, and workers are not switching jobs as much.after two years of high interest rates have curbed inflation, weighing on the broader economy and, increasingly, jobs.“This is the result of higher interest rates,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist at the jobs site ZipRecruiter. “They’re holding back business investment .
Ida Fogle, an outreach associate at the Daniel Boone Regional Library, in Columbia, Mo., received a 25 percent pay bump this year in her union contract, and now earns about $24.40 an hour. Under the pinch of rising costs, she had taken on transcription jobs in the gig economy and was “always looking for extra work.” With her raise, Fogle now can end her workday when she gets home from the library and purchased a new bed that has alleviated her chronic back pain.
Job growth in leisure and hospitality, which contributed to the post-pandemic labor market boom, has sputtered. Restaurant owners have been grappling with the higher costs of labor and borrowing required to expand.