One industry observer says that the U.S. labor market may be signaling that workers are doubling up on gigs to make ends meet.
Evan Sohn, CEO of Recruiter.com, told Yahoo Finance Live that they'd have double income, two jobs to make ends meet. Sohn said 40% of recruiters are posting for jobs that don't require a college degree, in sectors that are still hot, such as hospitality and services. The latest labor data shows that there are some of the industries that are still adding jobs.
He said that inflation would lead to two jobs because you have higher costs for everything and that would lead to inflation going up. People are going back to having two jobs, and that could be what's happening now. If you see a flat labor participation, an increase in unemployment and yet jobs are being created, that would make sense. In February, the U.S. added 311,000 jobs, while unemployment went up to 3.6%. The number of people actively in the labor force as a percentage of the total working age population was up to 62.5%, up ever so slightly. Since early 2022, the measure hasn't changed much and still sits below its pre-pandemic level.
The latest employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the number of job holders increased to 8,041, 000 last month, compared to 7,557, 000 in February 2022. The segment of the workforce that falls under that category went up to 5%, compared to 4.8% last year.
The total number of people working part time was almost 22 million in February. That figure is more than five times more than the 4.1 million people who work part time but would prefer full-time hours.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell stated that the rate of job openings to employment remains high, with 1.9 jobs for every person looking for work.
Many of these positions are in lower-paid segments because of the type of work available. The biggest sectors in the 10.8 million job openings tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are in the areas of:
Over a 12 month period, Recruiter.com has been tracking layoffs and new jobs. Its data shows IT openings are down 5.7% from a year ago. Transportation and warehousing is 2% lower, but retail posts are up 4% and healthcare is up by 1.5%.
The industry layoffs from December 2022 to February 2023 show that IT lost 24%, while 22.5% of the losses were in manufacturing.