„The totality of evidence is increasingly pointing to a slowdown in the labor market that could reflect a recession,“ one economist told Newsweek.
A tranche of economic data released this week has exacerbated fears about the health of the U.S jobs market and the broader economy it underpins.
Until recently, the labor market had been considered in fairly rude health. The White House held up better-than-expected jobs figures from June as evidence that President Donald Trump had unleashed „historic growth and prosperity for our workers.“ Meanwhile, the minutes of the Federal Reserve’s July meeting referred to labor conditions as „solid“, a fact that presumably gave it greater confidence in holding off on rate cuts as it grappled with the more pressing issue of „elevated“ inflation.
The needle appeared to shift in early August, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the economy added only 73,000 jobs the previous month, far short of the 110,000 analysts had expected. Alongside major revisions to previous months‘ data, this led Trump to fire the commissioner of the BLS, Erika McEntarfer, whom he accused of tampering with the figures to reflect poorly on him and his administration.
But while McEntarfer has gone—replaced with a more ideologically aligned economist—recent data from the BLS and other organizations have yet to offer evidence of the robust jobs market Trump will be hoping for.
On Wednesday, the agency reported that job openings in the U.S. had fallen by 176,000 to 7.18 million, the lowest level since September 2024 and well below forecasts of 7.4 million. For the first time since April 2021, job openings are now lower than the total number of unemployed workers—7.24 million.
„The decline in open positions is another indication that hiring will remain weak and the job market is soft“, Moody’s Chief Economist Mark Zandi told Newsweek.
