The U.S. job market is showing warning signs, with multiple indicators falling to their lowest levels since the pandemic in 2020

According to The Kobeissi Letter data, U.S. government job vacancies in February fell to 701,000, the second lowest since December 2020, a decrease of 524,000 from the peak in 2022. Federal government vacancies are down to 89,000, with the hiring rate dropping to 1.4%, matching the lows of 2016 to 2017. Private companies are also significantly laying off employees, with Oracle reportedly cutting as many as 30,000 jobs, Amazon reducing 16,000 positions, and Block laying off over 4,000 people.

In terms of consumer confidence, only 27.3% believe that jobs are plentiful, far below the approximately 55% in 2022; the labor market disparity indicator has dropped to 5.8 percentage points, the lowest since the pandemic. Kobeissi points out that this indicator has historically been a reliable leading signal for rising unemployment, with the current level only appearing before and after economic recessions.