The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research<\/a> finds that only 17% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of the cost of living. Just 26% approve of his handling of the economy overall, marking a new low.<\/p>\nThe public\u2019s misgivings about jobs partly reflect an odd feature of the current labor market: Employers aren\u2019t laying off many workers, but they aren\u2019t hiring many either. A Labor Department measure of gross hiring \u2013 before subtracting those who quit or lose their jobs \u2013 has been stuck in a rut for more than two years.<\/p>\n
So economists describe a \u201c low-hire, low-fire \u2019\u2019 job market in which those who have jobs are mostly secure, but jobseekers struggle to find work. In August, the average unemployed person had been out of work for more than six months, the longest average stretch of joblessness since February 2022.<\/p>\n
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\u201cPeople know that being laid off is unusually costly right now,\u201d said Glassdoor\u2019s Zhao. \u201cThey hear from their friends how long they\u2019ve been out of work and had such a difficult time finding a job. That does make layoffs even more scary than usual.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
In that chilly environment, fewer workers are willing to quit their jobs. \u201cThey often feel stuck,\u2019\u2019 Zhao said. \u201cWorkers aren\u2019t finding there\u2019s opportunity on the open market to find a better job \u2013 one that pays more or offers better work-life balance.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
The weak hiring means more meager wage gains, too. Average hourly pay rose just 3.1% in August from a year earlier \u2013 the stingiest year-over-year increase since May 2021.<\/p>\n
Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco reported in August that the job search has become tougher for two groups that should be doing well this deep into an economic expansion.<\/p>\n
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Normally at this point \u2013 the last recession was six years ago — employers would need workers so badly they\u2019d be willing to take a chance on applicants who are young or have little experience or proven skills. But no: \u201cInstead of being pulled in, the pipeline into employment is shrinking such that the recovery is no longer reaching workers at the margins,\u2019\u2019 the researchers noted.<\/p>\n
Moreover, the unemployed people who normally get back to work the fastest \u2013 those in their prime working years (25 to 54) and with college educations \u2013 are struggling to find new jobs.<\/p>\n
The San Francisco Fed researchers aren\u2019t sure what\u2019s making the job search so tough. They suspect it might have to do with Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown, hiring slowdowns specifically at tech companies and government contractors, \u201cthe early effects of AI-related displacement in professional occupations,\u2019\u2019 uncertainty over the direction of government policy or \u201cearly signals of broader labor market deterioration.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Complicating the picture: The United States doesn\u2019t need as many jobs as it used to keep the unemployment rate stable. Baby boomer retirements and Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown mean fewer people are competing for work. As a result, economists say, the so-called \u201cbreak-even\u2019\u2019 rate of hiring could be as low as zero jobs a month, down from perhaps 150,000 a year or so ago.<\/p>\n
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So far this year, employers have been adding an average 80,000 jobs a month, more than enough to keep the unemployment rate low, and a big improvement on the 2025 average of just 9,700 jobs a month \u2013 the feeblest hiring outside a recession since 2002.<\/p>\n
Still, hiring remains well below the 166,000 monthly jobs created, on average, in 2023 and 2024 and the 491,000 a month recorded during the 2021-2022 hiring boom that followed pandemic lockdowns.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seeing a modest improvement,\u2019\u2019 said Glassdoor\u2019s Zhao. \u201cWhether that\u2019s enough to really make workers feel good about the job market is a different question. A modest improvement is not really the same as opening up opportunities and really making people feel like they can advance their careers.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A hiring sign is displayed at a sandwich shop, in Streamwood, Ill., Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. Nam Y.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156020,32533,145,31231,156019,23681,59373,84874,59371,84875,59372,61262,82,84,83,9970],"class_list":["post-454253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-daniel-zhao","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-jobs-unemployment-economy-ai-hiring","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30597-ap-business-news-f-wire","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31995-ap-online-general-financial-business-news","tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-san-francisco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}