Zincwarrior
Diamond Member
Worker sentiment impacts spending. This is not good.
Respondents to the central bank’s monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations for August indicated a 44.9% probability of finding another job after losing their current one. The reading tumbled 5.8 percentage points from the prior month and is the lowest in the survey’s history dating back to June 2013.
The result further demonstrates the reversal of the “Great Resignation” that occurred in 2021-22, when at one point 4.5 million workers a month were quitting their jobs and feeling good about finding new ones. That number stood at 3.2 million in July, well off the pace of a few years ago and down more than 5% from the same period in 2024, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures.
“Consumers are feeling down about job-finding opportunities, and those feelings are wholly appropriate,” said Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at consumer site NerdWallet. “It’s very difficult to find work right now. And unlikely to get better any time soon. Employers aren’t hiring much, so workers are stuck job-hugging, clinging to their current jobs because the market isn’t favorable to job seekers.”
Various factors that had come into play during the Covid pandemic helped influence the high level of mobility, including a supply-demand mismatch in the labor market that saw more than two open jobs for each available worker.
But a labor market that has ground to a virtual standstill has ended the trend. While there are not too many signs that employers are laying off workers en masse, hiring has slowed dramatically. That has caused workers to stay put in their jobs as uncertainty over inflation and economic growth has caused employers to be cautious about growing payrolls.
There are now more workers available than job openings, something that hasn’t been the case since well before Covid.
Other parts of the Fed survey reflect the trend: The probability of leaving one’s job voluntarily over the next year was little changed, down just 0.1 percentage point to 18.9%. At the same time, expectations that the unemployment rate will be higher a year from now rose to 39.1%, up 1.7 percentage points from July and a point above the 12-month average.
The results follow a dismal August nonfarm payrolls count.
- The New York Fed’s monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations indicated a 44.9% probability of finding another job after losing their current one, the lowest in the survey’s history.
- Expectations that the unemployment rate will be higher a year from now rose to 39.1%, up 1.7 percentage points from July.
Respondents to the central bank’s monthly Survey of Consumer Expectations for August indicated a 44.9% probability of finding another job after losing their current one. The reading tumbled 5.8 percentage points from the prior month and is the lowest in the survey’s history dating back to June 2013.
The result further demonstrates the reversal of the “Great Resignation” that occurred in 2021-22, when at one point 4.5 million workers a month were quitting their jobs and feeling good about finding new ones. That number stood at 3.2 million in July, well off the pace of a few years ago and down more than 5% from the same period in 2024, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures.
“Consumers are feeling down about job-finding opportunities, and those feelings are wholly appropriate,” said Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at consumer site NerdWallet. “It’s very difficult to find work right now. And unlikely to get better any time soon. Employers aren’t hiring much, so workers are stuck job-hugging, clinging to their current jobs because the market isn’t favorable to job seekers.”
Various factors that had come into play during the Covid pandemic helped influence the high level of mobility, including a supply-demand mismatch in the labor market that saw more than two open jobs for each available worker.
But a labor market that has ground to a virtual standstill has ended the trend. While there are not too many signs that employers are laying off workers en masse, hiring has slowed dramatically. That has caused workers to stay put in their jobs as uncertainty over inflation and economic growth has caused employers to be cautious about growing payrolls.
There are now more workers available than job openings, something that hasn’t been the case since well before Covid.
Other parts of the Fed survey reflect the trend: The probability of leaving one’s job voluntarily over the next year was little changed, down just 0.1 percentage point to 18.9%. At the same time, expectations that the unemployment rate will be higher a year from now rose to 39.1%, up 1.7 percentage points from July and a point above the 12-month average.
The results follow a dismal August nonfarm payrolls count.
