It now takes the average US worker 24 weeks to find a job after losing one, nearly a month longer than a year ago, according to federal data.

The hire rate—the number of hires as a share of overall U.S. employment—was just 3.3% in June, according to the Labour Department; below the 3.9% level in February 2020 and much less than the 4.6% registered in November 2021, when the job market was surging back (chart below since 2015, courtesy of WSJ.com).

One in five employers surveyed plans to slow hiring further in the second half of 2025, almost twice the rate of companies that anticipated bringing on fewer people at this time last year. See, More US Companies Plan to Slow Pace of Hiring in Second Half of 2025.

Some CEOs have been bragging to investors about their shrinking workforces and plans to be more productive with fewer employees.

Tariffs have weighed on manufacturing, among other sectors, while workplace raids have hurt immigrant-dependent industries such as landscaping and meatpacking.

Multiple independent projections suggest that the US will experience negative net migration in 2025—a demographic shift not seen in at least 50 years.

Net negative migration, along with non-replacement birth rates, is another drag on GDP growth.

Weak job growth is an economic warning. As the economy starts losing jobs, the process can feed on itself, leading businesses and consumers to pull back, layoffs to pile up, and the country to slip into a recession.