There Are More Open Jobs Than Ever Before. Why Are Job Hunts Longer?
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Here's your Money Briefing for Monday, January 23rd. I'm Danny Lewis for The Wall Street Journal, filling in for J.R. Whelan. Job hunting is stressful in the best of times. But after a few years of red-hot hiring during the pandemic, the cooling economy is spurring companies to lay off thousands of workers. And even though job openings are historically high, employers are taking their time to fill those positions.
A lot of white-collar industries, think finance, technology, real estate, are pulling back on hiring. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that these companies actually hired a ton of workers earlier in the pandemic.
So if you're looking for a new gig, what should you know? And what should you expect going into the job market right now? Our economics reporter Sarah Cheney-Kambon joins us after the break.
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How is the current job market different after pandemic hiring surges?
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The 2023 job market has gotten off to a rough start for job hunters. For the last few years, it seemed like everyone was hiring for everything, everywhere, all the time. But over the last few months, in the face of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, some white-collar companies have announced layoffs, and more are slowing down hiring new workers. And that's making it harder for people to find a new job. Our economics reporter, Sarah Chaney-Cambon, is here to talk about what that means for people searching for their next gig. Hey, Sarah. Thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me. Okay. Job hunting is never fun, right? Can you put this into context for us? How hard has it gotten for workers?
Right. So the labor market is still tight. The unemployment rate is still low and job openings are high. But unemployed workers are spending more time looking for jobs than they were about a year ago. In December, we actually saw that about 800,000 unemployed people had been out of a job for anywhere from about three and a half to six months. And that's up from about 500,000 people last spring.
Wow. And what kinds of jobs are slow rolling the hiring process right now?
A lot of white-collar industries, think finance, technology, real estate, are pulling back on hiring. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that these companies actually hired a ton of workers earlier in the pandemic. Now that interest rates are going up, a lot of business leaders are getting a little bit more cautious about the outlook and cutting workers.
And yet the U.S. Labor Department says there's a historically high number of job openings. If there are empty and available positions, why are companies taking their time filling them?
It really depends on the industry. We've seen that a lot of jobs in leisure and hospitality, like restaurant jobs, jobs at hotels, are still in high demand. But a lot of these white collar industries are pulling back. on posting jobs. I think human resources is a good example. Jobs in that sector have come down a lot in the past year. We've also seen that software development jobs are way less available than they were a year ago.
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