(Crankers) In a fresh sign of strain on the U.S. labor market, worker confidence in the ability to switch jobs has fallen to its lowest level on record, according to a New York Federal Reserve survey released Monday.
The Fed’s August Survey of Consumer Expectations found respondents saw just a 44.9% chance of landing a new job if they lost their current one — a 5.8-point drop from July and the weakest reading since the survey began in 2013.
The numbers underscore the sharp reversal from the “Great Resignation” of 2021-22, when as many as 4.5 million people a month were voluntarily leaving jobs with little concern about finding another. By July, quits had dropped to 3.2 million, more than 5% lower than a year earlier and far below the peak pace, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
“Consumers are feeling down about job-finding opportunities, and those feelings are wholly appropriate,” said Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at consumer site NerdWallet.
“It’s very difficult to find work right now. And unlikely to get better any time soon. Employers aren’t hiring much, so workers are stuck job-hugging, clinging to their current jobs because the market isn’t favorable to job seekers,” she added, via CNBC.
During the Covid pandemic, several factors fueled unprecedented job mobility — chief among them a supply-demand imbalance that left more than two openings for every available worker.
That dynamic has since reversed. The labor market has slowed to a near standstill, with hiring cooling sharply even as large-scale layoffs remain limited. As a result, many workers are choosing to stay put, while employers, wary of inflation and uneven economic growth, have grown cautious about expanding payrolls.
For the first time in years, there are now more workers seeking jobs than available positions — a shift not seen since before the COVID pandemic.