The U.S. job market remained relatively stable in Q2 despite growing concerns about the broader health of the economy.
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Job growth continues to be strong, and the unemployment rate is holding steady at 3.6% – its lowest rate since January 2020.
Yet, as consumers and businesses grapple with inflation, rising interest rates, and continued supply chain and COVID-19 disruptions, many worry that a recession is around the corner. Although the job market has proven largely resilient up until this point, the future outlook appears increasingly uncertain.
In order to get a better understanding of the current job market, Joblist surveyed more than 15,000 job seekers from across the country over the past three months.
80% of job seekers expect the U.S. to enter a recession in the next year and 49% anticipate that the job market will get worse over the next six months. As a result, 60% of job seekers feel more urgency to find a job now before market conditions change.
41% of workers received a pay raise in the first half of 2022. However, 72% of these reported that their raise was less than 8.5%, thus failing to keep pace with the current inflation rate.
86% of workers in our survey commute to work by car at least some of the time. Of these, 59% say that rising gas prices are putting a “high†or “very high†level of strain on them financially. As a result, nearly 70% of commuters are taking measures to counter rising gas prices, such as looking for a job with higher pay or a shorter commute, working from home, or moving closer to work.
Over one in four people who quit their previous job (26%) regret their decision. Of those who found a new job after quitting, 42% say that their new job has not lived up to their expectations.
The pandemic forced more than two million premature retirements, but many of those retirees are now returning to work. Although 27% of retired job seekers are re-entering the workforce for financial reasons — and 21% cite inflation concerns, specifically — the majority are unretiring instead for personal reasons. In our survey, 60% say that they are primarily “looking for something to do,†and 53% report that they are happy about going back to work. ■