The US is seeing a severe slump in employment opportunities with nearly all sectors offering less number of jobs and even lesser growth. A report in The Washington Post stated that finding a job at present in America is the toughest in years. The most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the US employment market showed the unemployment rate up to 4.3 percent, as employers added just 22,000 jobs in August.
This was four months in a row with sluggish rate of job growth, leading to an increase in unemployment which is going to its highest level since late 2021. Then the economy was still recovering from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
And at present, the companies are battling with inflation, economic uncertainty and trade policy under the second regime of President Donald Trump. Artificial intelligence is another factor as employers are preferring AI over the human workforce.
And many senior executives are bragging about layoffs as wins, vouching for a leaner and more efficient workforce. The slowdown is visible across the industries including goods-production, manufacturing, mining, service sector and IT. With lesser jobs and more layoffs, the situation is only getting worse with each passing day.
Hiring dips, firing shoots up
According to the Washington Post, the employers are not publishing enough job vacancies, while they are laying off existing staff. Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank in Dallas, told the outlet that the US economy is “operating in low gear.”
Sectors like child care, community and social service, scientific research, retail, and hospitality, have seen the worst impact with lesser than ever jobs. A sharp decline has also been noticed in administrative roles such as human resources and accounting, the report added.
“While the pace of layoffs has picked up somewhat, the hiring rate remains quite low,” said Mike Fratantoni, chief economist and senior vice president of research at Mortgage Bankers Association.
What do numbers say?
The report cited estimates of Challenger, and said that US employers announced more than 800,000 job cuts this year to date, the highest January-to-August total since 2020. Among those with the biggest pullback are pharmaceutical companies, nonprofits and warehousing.
US President Donald Trump’s tariff policy has already increased the burden on American consumers, while the decision to reduce a big chunk of the federal workforce has also hit the economic and market conditions. Around over 10,000 job cuts were explicitly tied to artificial intelligence, the report mentioned.
Retail job losses shot up to 242 percent through August, compared with the same period last year, according to Challenger. The increase directly hit 83,656 positions. Meanwhile, nearly 6,000 stores shuttered in the first half of 2025, according to data from Coresight Research.
Layoffs worsen already struggling US job market
The employment market is already lean, and the number of layoffs from across the industries is making it worse. The Post reported that Nike, which softened sales with an estimated $1 billion a year hit from tariffs, said it would lay off nearly 1 percent of its corporate staff.
Retail bankruptcies have been on a rise in the US leading to store closures and reduced corporate staff. Forever 21, which filed for Chapter 11 in March, closed its corporate headquarters and laid off 700 people, the report added.
It added that the tech sector has shed more than 150,000 workers in 2024, according to independent tracker Layoffs.fyi. Microsoft alone removed more than 15,000, despite soaring sales.
Nvidia is also mulling cutting down staff. Intel has cut thousands of workers, so have Oracle and Salesforce.