The 10000 Hours
What you need to know
- A new study found that getting hired was more difficult for job seekers in 2024. Employers announced the smallest hiring plans since 2015.
- The Challenger, Gray & Christmas report on hiring and layoffs painted a familiar picture of the job market, in which hiring is slowing down compared to previous years.
- The report also showed an uptick in layoffs, which were concentrated in a few industries and don't necessarily indicate widespread economic problems.
In 2016, employers reported the lowest hiring intentions since 2015, with the market still stuck in the low-hiring, low-firing, and low-quit limbo.
U.S. employers announced 769,953 hiring plans in 2024, down 1.3% from 2023, to a nine-year low, consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in its monthly job market report Thursday. Businesses also increased layoffs, with the 761,358 job cuts announced in 2024 up 5.5% over the year before and the most since 2020.
Employers Aren't Hiring and Firing; Workers Aren't Quitting
Data from the survey paints a picture that shows a relatively stable job market, though it has stagnated in recent months. The majority of employers hire few employees, yet they also avoid mass layoffs. Many economists believe that employers may be in a hold pattern due to uncertainty about the direction of the economy, under the incoming President Donald Trump.
“Economic uncertainty seems to have left many employers in a wait-and-see position, and therefore some are keeping job postings up for the right candidate that may apply but they are being more selective than in the previous few years when they were starving for workers,” Justin Begley wrote about his experience as an economist for Moody’s Analytics in a recent commentary.
The market for jobs is not as hot now as it used to be in the days immediately following the pandemic, when there was a high demand for workers. Recent official statistics on employment show that hiring, letting go and quitting have all decreased compared with pre-pandemic levels.
Although the Challenger report showed elevated layoffs, Begley said the uptick didn't necessarily mean the job market is taking a nosedive, noting that the dismissals were concentrated in just four industries: technology, retail, health care/products and financial services.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, layoffs reached near records lows in November.
Challenger’s December report on jobs is an indication of what you can expect when the BLS releases its report Thursday. Economists consider the BLS report the "gold standard" of labor market data, and the data tend to move financial markets more than reports from private companies like Challenger and ADP.
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