"After a year of stalled hiring and "ghost jobs," Americans are going back to school, retraining, and trying to get off the sidelines. But they've been flying blind after the longest federal government shutdown in history clouded the picture on job growth and unemployment. Finally, the October and November figures confirmed what most of them seem to feel already: The labor market has no room for them."
"Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at LPL Financial, wrote in a note the jump in unemployment reflects a "transformation" in the labor force. Rather than unemployment being driven by layoffs, he said, "it was driven by an increase of individuals formerly not in the labor force." In other words, people who had been without work for so long they weren't considered to be in the labor force started looking during the holiday, and didn't find any takers."
"It was the week before Christmas, and Americans got one more dispiriting look at the jobs market. The unemployment rate rose to 4.6% in November, the highest since 2021. But this isn't a standard recession: The BLS isn't seeing layoffs happen as much in the private sector. Instead, it continues to see a virtual hiring freeze, two-thirds of a year after the bottom fell out of employment growth in April."
Unemployment increased to 4.6% in November as job growth stalled and a hiring freeze persisted, not because of widespread private‑sector layoffs but because more people reentered the labor force. The longest federal government shutdown obscured recent employment data, delaying clarity until October and November figures. Over the past year the number of unemployed Americans rose by more than 700,000, with re‑entrants growing fastest, roughly 20% year‑over‑year. Analysts describe the rise as partly noisy and driven by idiosyncratic spikes. Many workers are returning to education and retraining while seeking opportunities in a tight labor market.
Read at Fortune
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]