Hiring in the US drops to pandemic lows as job market under Trump stagnates

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Hiring in the US drops to pandemic lows as job market under Trump stagnates

 

Labour market stagnation mirrors a slowing private payroll growth, averaging just 18,000 monthly in recent months

 

By Andy Hirschfeld and Reuters/Aljazeera/ 31 Mar 202631 Mar 2026

 

Job openings in the United States have dropped to their lowest level in six years, as the demand for labour stalls amid concerns about trade, immigration and the surging role of artificial intelligence (AI).

 

Tuesday’s Job Openings and Labour Turnover Survey (JOLTS), a monthly report released by the US Labour Department, showed that job openings tumbled by 358,000 to 6.882 million in February.

 

That was down from a projected 6.918 million job openings for the month, a steeper decline than experts had expected. In January, the JOLTS report had recorded 7.240 million job openings.

 

Hiring efforts also slumped in February, with 498,000 fewer people hired, for a total of 4.8 million people. That marks the lowest hiring level since March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

Fewer people are also leaving their jobs for new ones, reflecting stagnation in the job market. Three million people quit last month, for a rate of 1.9 percent.

 

Alongside the stagnating job market, there has been a broader slump in consumer sentiment.

 

A March report from the University of Michigan showed that consumer sentiment — a measure of economic confidence — dropped 6 percent from this time last year and 5.8 percent from the previous month.

 

That put consumer sentiment at its lowest level since December.

 

Economist Heather Boushey, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, describes some of that decline as a response to President Donald Trump’s second-term policies.

 

“People are getting super frustrated with Trump’s economy. Big-ticket items and kitchen-table costs were already on the rise, and this morning, we saw the lowest consumer sentiment of 2026 across nearly every demographic,” Boushey said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

 

Full at:

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/3/31/hiring-in-the-us-drops-to-pandemic-lows-as-job-market-under-trump-stagnates