Hiring for the private sector fell in February to the lowest rate since February 2010, when the economy was struggling to pull itself from the depths of the Great Recession, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday.
Only 4.5 million workers were hired in the private sector last month, down 503,000 from January, according to an update to the BLS’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. The survey reports gross hiring and firing, rather than the more widely cited net figures in the monthly jobs reports. As a share of total employment, hires fell to 3.3%, the lowest such rate in 16 years.
Overall, including the public sector, the total number of hires in February tumbled by nearly 500,000 to 4.8 million, causing the hire rate to fall to 3.1%. That is the lowest rate since the entire economy was shut down at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020.
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“Hires rates have dropped across a number of sectors, with the most severe declines over the last year registered in the construction and professional [and] business services sectors,” said Indeed Hiring Lab’s Laura Ullrich in a statement on Tuesday’s JOLTS release.
The new data add to signs that the labor market is weakening.
There have been signs of a gradually slowing labor market for months. The last monthly jobs report was surprisingly bad, showing that the economy lost 92,000 jobs in February.
The latest JOLTS is also a major headache for President Donald Trump, who has been plagued by low economic approval ratings, and for Republicans, who are hoping to keep control of Congress as Democrats attempt to retake both chambers.
The JOLTS also showed that job openings, another sign of labor market strength, fell from 7.2 million in January to 6.9 million last month. Job openings have slid since peaking in March 2022, with a recent low of 6.6 million notched in December.
The “quits rate” measures the share of people who voluntarily left their jobs and includes those who left their previous employment for another job and people who quit but are confident they will soon find new employment. This rate fell slightly to 1.9%. It has been relatively flat over the past several months, but it shows that people are holding on to the jobs they have.
All of this comes as the United States is enmeshed in a war with Iran that has sent energy prices spiking and raised more concerns about the economy, inflation, and affordability. Notably, the Tuesday JOLTS was conducted before the war began.
Gasoline prices have skyrocketed since the war began, rising from a national average of less than $3 per gallon a month ago to $4.01 as of Tuesday, according to AAA.
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“Sharply lower job listings at the end of February as the Iran war started is not a good omen for the health and vitality of the labor market,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at FWDBONDS. “The economy is slowing down, and time will tell whether this is the start of a recession or not.”
“Every recession since the 70s has been preceded by a spike in energy prices, and it will be a miracle if the U.S. can miss a downturn this time around,” he added.
