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From the Wall Street Journal: The U.S. economy has added more than two million jobs over the past year. But more people who are out of work are having a hard time getting back in.
As of November, more than seven million Americans were unemployed, meaning they didn’t have work and were trying to find it. More than 1.6 million of those jobless workers had been job hunting for at least six months, according to the Labor Department. The number of people searching for that long is up more than 50% since the end of 2022.
On average, it now takes people about six months to find a job, roughly a month longer than it did during the postpandemic hiring boom in early 2023, according to the Labor Department. The pain is largely in high-paying white-collar jobs, including in tech, law and media, where businesses grew fast when the economy reopened from the pandemic but now have less need for new hires.
A labor market that looks healthy in the headlines is, under the surface, weaker than it seems. The unemployment rate, at 4.2%, remains well below the average during the decade before the pandemic. But there is now just about one job posting per unemployed worker, down from two in early 2022. Strong hiring has narrowed to a thin set of industries. The government’s monthly jobs report on Friday will provide another snapshot of the market’s health.
The report explains that there are still plenty of jobs available for hands-on services work, including in the healthcare and hospitality sectors.
However, office jobs are becoming more scarce, with some companies even replacing workers with AI (artificial intelligence).
Is #AI beginning to significantly impact white collar employment? #RiseoftheRobots
More than 1.6 million unemployed workers have been job hunting for at least six months—a number that has ballooned by more than 50% in the past two years https://t.co/zZ1Kdz0uDk via @WSJ
— Martin Ford (@MFordFuture) January 6, 2025
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