For the millions of job seekers in the United States facing extraordinary challenges to finding work, this is critical. Most of them are out of work for almost half a year on average. The current tight labor market presents significant hurdles to their success. Young people trying to find their first job and those who have been recently unemployed have it especially hard right now. It has developed into a perfect storm as hiring has completely plummeted in every sector except for a few essential healthcare industries.
Yet according to recent data, 23.3% of unemployed workers have been out of a job for 27 weeks or more. This number highlights the arduous paths so many Americans have to go through. At the same time, they are contending with a tight labor market characterized by “anemic” hiring. After last week’s first-time applications for unemployment benefits fell a bit, coming in at 227,000 for the week ending July 5. The not-as-good news is that continuing claims rose by 10,000 to 1.965 million. This figure represents the largest continuing claims total since November 13, 2021.
The cooling of the U.S. labor market, which has been developing for over a year now, has recently become abundantly clear. Employers brought back a ground-shattering 147,000 jobs in June, well above all estimates. Nearly all of these gains—over 94%—were due to the healthcare sector and state and local government jobs. Employers are still wary and pulling back on hiring, an attitude that has mostly driven the deceleration in job growth. Rather than rushing to do mass layoffs, they’re proceeding more cautiously.
Her colleague, economist Heather Long, is the one who highlighted the hopelessness many workers feel as they search in this awful new world.
“It’s difficult to find a new job right now. Young people are struggling to get their first jobs and anyone who has been laid off is having a hard time landing their next role.” – Heather Long
Long also provided additional context on the current state of the labor market.
“The labor market is frozen outside of healthcare, education and law enforcement jobs. Hiring is anemic in other sectors as companies remain cautious in this environment.” – Heather Long
Economic uncertainties, especially those caused by tariffs, have often added to this stagnation. These pressures have caused employers to be gun shy about fully expanding their work force, making the job search that much harder for millions of people.
Long had been stressing the need to clear the air on tariff issues for the sake of our nation’s future job seekers.
“The sooner the tariff uncertainty abates, the better for job seekers.” – Heather Long