Is the US in a hiring recession?

American workers are staring down a terrible labor market. It’s so bad that job postings are at their lowest level since the depths of the pandemic.

The demand for new hires “continues to wane,” said CNN. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week that there were just 6.54 million job openings in December, the “lowest level since September 2020.” That leaves “slim pickings” for Americans looking to find a new job, said NerdWallet’s Elizabeth Renter, per the network. And economists are cautious about how tariffs, immigration policy and artificial intelligence will affect the job market going forward. “The hiring recession isn’t going to end anytime soon,” said Heather Long, the chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, in a commentary.

The pandemic is not the only point of comparison. Layoffs in January were the highest since the 2009 financial crisis plunged the U.S. economy into the “steepest downturn since the Great Depression,” said CNBC. American companies announced more than 108,000 layoffs for the month, more than double from a year ago. That signals that employers are “less-than-optimistic about the outlook for 2026,” said workplace expert Andy Challenger in an analysis. Workers are feeling negative, too. Consumer confidence is at its “lowest level since 2014,” said The Associated Press.

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What did the commentators say?

“Republicans have an economy problem,” said Karl Rove at The Wall Street Journal. President Donald Trump is not helping himself with a “triumphal tone” that suggests the economy is “booming.” That makes struggling Americans “feel unseen and abandoned.” Trump and the GOP should emphasize their record on tax cuts, but they should also “stress there’s more to be done” through deregulation and deficit reduction. If they are to survive this year’s midterm elections, Republicans “need a better economic message” than what they are currently delivering.

America is in a “jobless boom,” said Long at Vox. The stock market is reaching “record levels” and economic growth is above 4%. But the “K-shaped economy” is delivering the benefits to the upper end of the income scale while the “bottom 80% are just getting by.” The end of the post-pandemic hiring boom is a factor, but so is Trump’s trade wars and the rise of artificial intelligence. The current economic trends are likely to continue. The country is poised for a “hot growth year” but “hiring could remain anemic for a while.” And that could “mean trouble for Republicans” in November.

What next?

The hiring slowdown is concentrated in “manufacturing, professional and business services,” said NBC News. A Wednesday report from ADP Research found that job growth, where it exists, is happening mostly in “education and health services.”

The job numbers are a “warning sign for Trump’s economy,” said Politico. The president’s approval ratings have been “battered by affordability, inflation and labor market anxieties,” and these are intensified by fears that AI-driven “future growth could leave workers behind.” That could complicate White House messaging that has framed the current economy “as the dawn of a new Golden Age.”