{"id":210354,"date":"2026-02-05T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/05\/the-job-market-was-already-slim-pickings-new-data-shows-it-just-got-worse\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T12:00:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T17:00:29","slug":"the-job-market-was-already-slim-pickings-new-data-shows-it-just-got-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/05\/the-job-market-was-already-slim-pickings-new-data-shows-it-just-got-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"The job market was already \u2018slim pickings.\u2019 New data shows it just got worse"},"content":{"rendered":"

The job market was already \u2018slim pickings.\u2019 New data shows it just got worse<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/02\/05\/economy\/us-jobs-data-layoffs-hiring<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-02-05 07:30:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.cnn.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\n The labor market is becoming increasingly inhospitable in the United States, as demand for workers continues to wane and job postings are at their lowest levels since the pandemic.\n <\/p>\n

\n New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Thursday showed that the estimated number of job openings sank to 6.54 million at the end of December, settling at the lowest level since September 2020. Hiring, quits and layoff rates held relatively steady.\n <\/p>\n

\n The latest BLS report alongside other labor market data released this week provided further confirmation that the \u201clow-hire, low-fire\u201d slog continues.\n <\/p>\n

\n There remain \u201cslim pickings\u201d for job seekers, said Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cJob openings can be thought of as forward-looking; rather than an action that an employer has already taken, openings signal what they\u2019re hoping (or not hoping) to do soon,\u201d Renter wrote in commentary issued Thursday. \u201cIn this way, a decrease in openings for the month of December could indicate employer uncertainty about the new year.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The uncertainty and fallout from sweeping policies implemented by the Trump administration \u2013 particularly in the areas of tariffs and immigration \u2013 have weighed heavily on hiring plans, noted Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. Companies instead have put their money toward testing the waters on technologies like artificial intelligence, she said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe hiring recession isn\u2019t going to end anytime soon,\u201d she wrote.\n <\/p>\n

\n Last year, the US labor market posted the weakest job growth outside of a recession since 2003, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.\n <\/p>\n

\n The official January jobs report isn\u2019t coming out until next Wednesday (a delay triggered by the brief federal shutdown\ufeff);…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The job market was already \u2018slim pickings.\u2019 New data shows it just got worse https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/02\/05\/economy\/us-jobs-data-layoffs-hiring…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":210355,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/gettyimages-2243307391.jpg?c=16x9&q=w_800,c_fill","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-210354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210354"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210354"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210356,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210354\/revisions\/210356"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}