Potential immigrant workers should brace themselves for a more challenging job market as 1.907 million individuals in the United States (U.S. filed for unemployment benefits in November 2024. This marks the highest level since November 2021.
In the latter half of 2024, the U.S. labour market entered a phase described as “low-hire, low-fire.” Aditya Bhave, Bank of America’s lead economist, explained, “We are in a ‘low-hire, low-fire’ environment. 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 seeker openings and quit rates
Job openings for September fell to their lowest point since January 2021, and the quits rate, an indicator of worker confidence, dropped to 1.9% from a revised 2% in August. According to Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, “The low level of quits is consistent with a decline in the availability of employment opportunities.”
Unemployment insurance claims
New data released by the Department of Labor on Wednesday showed that initial filings for unemployment insurance hit a seven-month low for the week ending November 23, with 213,000 initial claims filed.
This figure is down from the 215,000 filed the previous week and below the 215,000 economists had expected. However, the number of individuals making continuing claims, or filing for unemployment benefits for at least two consecutive weeks, rose to 1.907 million, the highest level since November 2021.
Samuel Tombs, chief U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, noted, “The recent pick-up in continuing claims broadly supports the idea that the flow of initial claims still is high enough for unemployment to continue to rise.”
As of October, the unemployment rate stood at 4.1%, down from this summer’s high of 4.3% but up from 3.8% a year ago.
Overall job growth has slowed, with recent hiring trends concentrated in just a few sectors.
Bank of America pointed out that healthcare, education, leisure and hospitality, and government sectors have driven hiring patterns over the last six quarters. Over the last three months, nonfarm payroll growth has averaged just 104,000. “Other industries have basically been stagnant for the last few months,” observed the Bank of America team.
Despite the rise in the unemployment rate, Bhave and his team noted that overall layoffs have remained low. “While the labour market has moderated, it hasn’t rolled over,” they wrote.
Bhave added, “A spike in layoffs would create a negative feedback loop between consumption and the labour market. For now, though, the layoff rate is below pre-pandemic levels, consistent with the low level of unemployment insurance claims.”
In November, consumer confidence reached its highest level since July 2023, driven largely by optimism over the labour market and future job availability as layoffs remain scarce.
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