Millennial job seekers could be getting flashbacks to their postgrad job search after the Great Recession.
The labor market is going through a Great Freeze, where employers and employees are staying put with few large-scale layoffs but little hiring. This is especially affecting new job seekers, like recent college graduates, and if you’re looking for work, it’s starting to feel like the sluggish recovery of the early 2010s — even if unemployment rates are still far below their post-financial-crisis highs.
“This is one of the worst times to really find a new job since the aftermath of the Great Recession,” Sarah Foster, an economic analyst for Bankrate and the author of a new report analyzing the job market, told Business Insider.
Back in 2021, the job market was still recovering from pandemic losses. People who still had a job had leverage to switch. Hiring slipped from 4.6% in November 2021 to 3.2% this past August, the most recent month available due to the government shutdown’s impact on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ activities. Besides June 2024, Bankrate said that hiring hasn’t been at this rate since 2013, when the economy was still in its slow, grinding recovery from the Great Recession.
Unemployment has been fairly low — it has inched back up to just 4.3% in August. That’s the highest since 2021 and far below the Great Recession recovery period. Still, Foster said it’s harder to understand the job market with this rate because both supply and demand have dropped.
“Hiring is bound to cool when the job market slows, Bankrate’s analysis found,” the new report said. “What’s unusual, though, is how sharply hiring has fallen compared to the uptick in unemployment.”
The frozen hiring rates we’re seeing now are typically only seen in much weaker job markets. Foster said this kind of hiring rate has historically corresponded to unemployment of 6.8%, suggesting that companies’ hiring plans are “akin to a labor market that’s still recovering from a recession.”
Foster said the US is in a “jobless boom, so to speak, where companies are expanding profits, the stock market is doing well, the economy is growing at the fastest pace in nearly two years, but growth is not happening because companies are expanding their payrolls.” Instead, she said companies are investing in “productivity-enhancing technologies,” such as AI.
How to get a job
Some job seekers have taken matters into their own hands and are pursuing entrepreneurship instead, while others send out their job applications, hoping something will stick. Parents are watching their college graduates face rejection, some older job seekers worry about ageism, and others are taking temporary work to get by.
Entry-level hiring dropped 6% in October from a year ago, based on LinkedIn. A separate Indeed Hiring Lab report using three-month moving average data found that retail, loading and stocking, and sales had the highest shares of junior-level job postings in August, but the report said advancement opportunities can be tough in those sectors.
Foster said getting a job in today’s labor market boils down to being patient, being determined, showcasing what makes you different from other job candidates, and leveraging personal connections.
“When you rely on that human factor and embrace the people that you meet throughout your career, that can hopefully help you break the noise-to-signal ratio a little bit,” she said.
Laura Ullrich, the director of economic research in North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, previously told Business Insider that aspiring job switchers may need to look beyond their current sector for a new role because some are hiring more than others. She also suggested exploring part-time work or volunteer opportunities that you can add to your résumé.
“I thought a year ago the job market was difficult,” one job seeker who was laid off in late 2023 told Business Insider. “I think it’s even more so now.”
What’s your job search been like? Reach out to this reporter to share your story at mhoff@businessinsider.com.
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