U.S. labor market has melted away: survey

NEW YORK, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) — U.S. hiring projections for this year’s college graduating class were below last year’s, with finance, insurance and real estate organizations planning a 14.5 percent decrease in hiring, a sharp U-turn from its 16.7 percent increase last year, a spring survey of employers by the National Association of Colleges and Employers has found.
“For much of the last three years, employers were fighting one another for workers. Now the tables have turned a bit. Few employers are firing. Layoff rates remain near record lows. But fewer employers are hiring,” said The New York Times on Thursday in its report about the survey.
That has left job seekers, employed or unemployed, competing for limited openings. And younger, less experienced applicants, even those with freshly obtained college degrees, have been feeling left out, it noted.
Separately, the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the overall pace of hiring in professional and business services, a go-to for many young graduates, is down to levels not seen since 2009.
At 4.3 percent, the unemployment rate is still low. But a key measure of labor market momentum known as the hires rate, which tracks a month’s hires as a share of overall employment, has notably fallen back to the sluggish pace of 2014, according to the report.
“That is historically consistent with an unemployment rate of 6.5 percent,” Guy Berger, director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute, which studies the labor market, was quoted as saying. “It’s a tough time to find a job.” ■