Approaching the mid-year mark economists were no longer predicting a recession, and there were hopes of a soft landing, as reported by the New York Times. In Q3, the number of open U.S. jobs fell to the lowest level in more than two years, signaling a slowdown in the labor market. The August Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey revealed a decrease in jobs, dropping from 9.16 million openings in June to 8.8 million open jobs in July. At the same time, the report showed a decline in the quit rate, which economists monitor closely. Higher quit rates depict climbing confidence in workers. These rates fell to 2.3%, the lowest since January 2021, pointing to a normalizing and rebalancing of the workforce and economy to pre-pandemic levels, as the fed continued to work toward bringing inflation back down to it’s 2% goal. While the labor market slowed in 2023, it was poised with sustainable and strong conditions — normally strong instead of abnormally strong . The demand for skilled workers still outnumbered supply, and the competition for talent remained fierce. To put this in another perspective, between April 2022 and April 2023 the United States gained an average of 345,427 jobs per month.
Compare that to 2010-2019, when the economy only added an average of 183,000 jobs a month.
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