Hiring collapsed. Layoffs didn’t.

Good morning. Thanks for coming back to Still Monday. Keep voting, replying and forwarding this to the person who keeps saying the job market is either “terrible” or “fine” with absolute confidence.

Because right now, both descriptions can sound correct.

Companies aren’t hiring much.

They aren’t firing much either.

The job market hasn’t crashed, it has stopped moving.

Let’s get to work.

The U.S. economy added only 29,000 jobs in September, far below the roughly 90,000 economists had expected. The unemployment rate edged up to 4.2%, and previous estimates for July and August were revised down by a combined 60,000 jobs. Bureau of Labor Statistics

That sounds like the beginning of a bad labor-market story.

Then look at layoffs.

Weekly initial unemployment claims recently fell to around 197,000, near their lowest level in decades. Announced layoffs also dropped in September. Reuters

So companies are not hiring aggressively.

They are also not sending huge numbers of people home.

Economists have a wonderfully exciting phrase for this:

Low hire. Low fire.

For somebody with a job, that can feel stable. For somebody trying to get one, it can feel like every company in America changed its status to:

Maybe later.

The latest JOLTS data show about 7.1 million job openings, with 5.2 million hires in August. Quits remained at 3.1 million. People are not moving through the labor market at the speed we saw a few years ago. Bureau of Labor Statistics

This matters beyond job seekers.

When fewer employees leave, managers can mistakenly interpret low turnover as engagement.

It may simply be caution.

An employee who would have jumped to another company two years ago may now decide that an annoying boss, mediocre raise and familiar problems are preferable to six rounds of interviews followed by:

We’ve decided to pause the role.

That creates a strange management risk.

A company can retain people without actually winning their loyalty.

They stay.

They do the job.

They stop volunteering for the extra thing.

They quietly stop believing the company is where their future happens.

Owners should be careful with the phrase “Nobody is leaving.”

Sometimes that means you built a great place to work.

Sometimes the exits are simply locked by the market.

Employees face the opposite problem.

A slow market makes desperation expensive. If you wait until your job becomes unbearable before exploring alternatives, you may discover that replacing it takes considerably longer than expected.

So the practical response to a frozen market is the same on both sides.

Don’t wait for motion.

Companies should develop people before vacancies appear.

Employees should understand their market before they need it.

The job market may be moving slowly.

Your planning shouldn’t.

The huge August number we discussed a few weeks ago was revised from 162,000 new jobs to 133,000. July was revised all the way from a previously reported gain to a loss of 10,000 jobs. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Economic data occasionally sends a follow-up email titled: Small correction.

The U.S. still had about 7.08 million open jobs in August, but the hiring rate remained only 3.3%. Quits were also subdued at 1.9%. Bureau of Labor Statistics

There are job openings.

There is hiring.

There is also an impressive amount of staring at each other.

Average hourly earnings increased only 0.1% in September and were up 3.0% over the previous year. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Your annual review would like to thank the labor market for its support.

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Managers: choose one important role on your team and ask what you would do if that person resigned tomorrow.

Who internally could cover it? What knowledge would disappear? What skill would you suddenly need to buy from the market?

Employees can run the same exercise personally. If your job disappeared tomorrow, which five companies would you contact first, what evidence would you show them, and which part of your experience would be hardest to replace?

You do not need a crisis to prepare for a crisis.

If employees are not leaving, it is tempting to assume compensation is competitive.

That conclusion gets dangerous in a weak hiring market.

People may tolerate a pay gap while alternatives are scarce. When hiring improves, months of suppressed movement can happen very quickly.

For employees, the same rule applies in reverse. A slow market does not automatically make your current compensation fair.

Market value and market liquidity are different things.

Know both.

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FINANCE: Hiring freeze.

HIRING MANAGER: The team can’t keep covering it.

FINANCE: Understood.

THREE MONTHS LATER

LEADERSHIP: Why is productivity down?

HIRING MANAGER: Great question..

No giant wave of layoffs.

No exploding unemployment rate.

Just fewer doors opening.

Sometimes an economy doesn’t need to slam on the brakes.

It can simply stop pressing the accelerator.

Vote below and tell us what you’re seeing: frozen hiring, active hiring, or some mysterious combination of both.

And forward this to the person who has been saying, “I’ll start looking when things get better.”

It may be worth looking before they do.

Technically Tuesday. Emotionally waiting for headcount approval.

— The Still Monday Desk