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The US labor market has become 'low-hire, low-fire'

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Alexandra Canal · Senior Reporter
Wed, November 27, 2024 at 11:49 AM EST 3 min read

The US labor market entered a new gear in the second half of 2024. ... Low-hire, low-fire. ... "We are in a 'low-hire, low-fire' environment," Bank of America's lead economist Aditya Bhave said in a note on Tuesday.

"In the spring of 2022, there were two open jobs for every unemployed person. Now that figure is just a little more than one. In other words, there aren’t as many opportunities out there."

Job openings for the month of September fell to their lowest level since January 2021, while the quits rate, a sign of confidence among workers, also dropped to 1.9% from a revised 2% in August. The number of open jobs per unemployed worker stood at 1.09.

"The low level of quits is consistent with a decline in the availability of employment opportunities," Oxford Economics lead US economist Nancy Vanden Houten said at the time.

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