A Help Wanted sign is displayed in the window of a Brooklyn, New York business.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
cracks are forming US labor market As some companies want to curb hiring while others are desperate for employees.
Microsoft, Twitter, Wayfair, crack and facebook-parent meta recently announced that they plan to be more conservative about adding new employees. peloton And Netflix announced layoff As demand for their products slowed, and online car sellers Carvana cut As its workforce grows, it faces inflation and a catering stock price.
“We will treat recruitment as a privilege and consider when and where we add headcount,” Uber Boss Dara Khosrowshahi written to employees Earlier this month, it promised to reduce costs.
US-based employers reported more than 24,000 job cuts in April, up 14% from the previous month and up 6% from the same month last year, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
But airlines, restaurants and others still need to fill positionsJob cuts for the first four months of the year were 52% lower than the same period in 2021. 80,000 job cuts were announced from January to April, the lowest tally in nearly three decades the data is tracking.
What is emerging is the story of two job markets – even if not identical in size or salary. The hospitality and other service sectors cannot hire enough staff to staff what is expected to restart in the sweltering heat after two years of Covid shortages. Tech and other big employers are warning they need to keep costs down and are putting employees on notice.
record job openings
We job vacancies That jumped to a seasonally adjusted 11.55 million at the end of March, according to the latest available Labor Department report, a record for data that goes back to 2000. The number of employees leaving their jobs also set a record of over 4.5. million. The rent was 6.7 crores.
wages are emerging But it’s not enough to go along inflationthere are more people Change Where they spend their money, household budgets in particular tighten due to the steepest consumer price increase in four decades.
Economists, employers, job seekers, investors and consumers are looking for signs of the direction of the economy and the emerging division in the labor market. Divergence could mean a slowdown in wage growth, or hiring itself and ultimately lower consumer spending, which remains strong despite declining consumer confidence.
Companies ranging from airlines to restaurants large and small still can’t charge fares fast enough, which forces them to development plans cutAfter those companies, demand returned faster than expected Shed workers During the pandemic-induced sale.
JetBlue Airways, Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines And Alaska Airlines pass reached back development plans at least partly due to staff shortages. JetBlue said the pilot’s crash was more serious than usual and is likely to continue.
“If your accident rate is 2x to 3x what you’ve seen historically, then you need to hire more pilots to stay stable,” JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes said at an investor conference on May 17.
Denver International Airport concessions such as restaurants and shops have made progress with hiring, but are still short of about 500 to 600 employees, according to Pam Dechant, senior vice president of concessions for the airport.
She said many chefs are earning around $22 an hour, which is up from $15 before the pandemic. Airport employers are offering hiring, retention and, in at least one case, this “if you show up to work every day this week” bonus.
“Consumers spent a lot on goods and not much on services over the pandemic, and now we’re seeing in our card data that they’re flying back into services,” said David Tinsley, an economist and director at Bank of America. Really… flying.” Institute.
“It’s a slight blow from those who might [had] In terms of hiring,” he said of the current trends.
snap back
The companies leading the job growth are those that were hit hardest at the start of the pandemic.
Rothman Food Group’s managing partner Jessica Jordan is struggling to hire the staff needed for her two businesses in Southern California, Catella Deli & Bakery and Manhattan Beach Creamery. They estimate that the two account for only about 75% of the workforce.
But half of applicants never respond to her email to interview, and even new employees who have already submitted their paperwork often disappear before their first day without any explanation. . Go, she said.
“I’m working very hard to hold their hand at every step of the process, just to make sure they come on day one,” Jordan said.
Large restaurant chains also tend to have longer hiring orders. For example, sandwich chain Subway said Thursday that it wants to add more than 50,000 new employees this summer. Taco Bell and Inspire Brands, which own Arby’s, said they are also looking at adding employees.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, hotels and food services had the highest industry leave rates in March, with 6.1% of workers leaving their jobs. The overall dropout rate that month was just 3%.
Some of those workers are moving away from the hospitality industry altogether. Julia, 19, who lives in New York City, left her restaurant job in February. She said she left because of the hostility of both customers and her bosses, and that too many extra shifts were added to her schedule at the last minute. She now works in child care.
“You have to work really hard to get fired in this economy,” said David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management. “You must be really incompetent and obnoxious.”
recession in silicon valley
And if the industry is hiring to catch up in the rebound, the opposite is equally true.
Following a spurt in recruitment, several big tech companies have announced freezes and layoffs due to concerns about the economic slowdown, the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Largely funded start-ups are not immune, even if they are not subject to the same market price decline as public tech stocks. At least 107 tech companies have laid off employees since the beginning of the year sorting.fyiWhich tracks the job cut across sectors.
In some cases, Facebook and . companies like Twitter is canceling Job offers after new employees have already been accepted leave workers such as Evan Watson in a precarious position.
Last month, Watson received a job offer at Facebook to join the emerging talent and diversity department, which he calls one of his “dream companies.” He served notice at the real estate development firm where he worked and debuted at the social media giant on May 9.
Just three days before that, Watson got a call about his new contract. Facebook was recently announced This would stifle recruitment, and Watson eagerly anticipated that he might receive bad news.
“When I got the call, my heart broke,” Watson said in an interview. Meta was freezing hiring, and Watson’s boarding was closed,
Watson said, ‘I was absolutely silent. I didn’t have words to say.” “Then I was like, ‘Now what?’ I don’t work in my other company.
The news disappointed Watson, but he said Facebook offered to fire him in search of a new job. Within a week, he got a job as a talent scout at Microsoft. Watson said he “feels good” about landing at Microsoft, where the company is “much more stable in terms of share value.”
For months, the retail giant heroine swing Generous Sign-on Bonus And free college tuition The company has hired 600,000 employees since early 2021 to lure workers, but now finds itself overstaffed in its fulfillment network.
Many of the company’s recent functions are no longer needed, including Cooling E-commerce Sales GrowthIn addition, workers on sick leave returned to work earlier than expected amid a surge in COVID cases, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said on a call with analysts last month.
Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel told CNBC: “Now that demand has become more predictable, there are sites in our network where we are slowing or stopping hiring to better align our operational needs. are.”
Amazon did not respond to questions about whether the company expects layoffs in the near future.
bearish gradient
Cut and hiring shifts are isolated for now, but they do have some executives.
Bank of America’s Tinsley cautioned, “Any news … when high-profile companies with job losses have the potential to quell sentiments a bit,” adding that the job market is still strong. Is. “Things are not as bad as pictures might paint something.”
However, the pace of employment growth in the services sector is likely to slow down, he said.
JPM’s Kelly said that even if the market has lost 30 lakh openings, it will still be a job-seekers’ market.
“The workers are in high demand. It really saved the economy from recession,” he said.
But there could be job cuts in other sectors.
A pullback in company spending on things like freezes, job cuts, pay breaks or even a return on employee benefits and business travel could hurt the very service sectors that have been hit by the COVID pandemic. . cases have decreased.
“The question is, ‘Will consumer spending keep its head above water?'” Tinsley said.
– CNBC Jordan Novett contributed to this story.