Low unemployment is masking a hiring slump that workers increasingly feel
The American labor market still looks healthy in the headline data, but workers are growing much more pessimistic about their chances of finding a good job. That disconnect is becoming harder to ignore. A new Gallup survey shows confidence in the job market has deteriorated sharply, with only 28 percent of workers saying it is a good time to find a quality job, while 72 percent say it is a bad time.
The shift is striking because it has happened quickly. In mid-2022, about 70 percent of workers still believed it was a good time to search for a job. Even as recently as late 2024, just under half held that view. By the final months of 2025, that optimism had largely vanished. The result helps explain why broader public sentiment on the economy remains gloomy even when unemployment stays relatively low and layoffs do not appear to be surging.
In effect, many Americans are living through a labor market that looks stable from the outside but feels increasingly closed from the inside. People are not necessarily losing jobs in large numbers. They are struggling to get new ones, improve their situation or move into better-paying roles. That difference matters because workers tend to judge the economy not just by whether they are employed, but by whether they feel they have options.
The problem is not firing, but the collapse in hiring momentum
Economists often describe the current environment as a low-hire, low-fire labor market. Businesses are still holding onto many of their existing employees, which helps keep unemployment from rising sharply. But they are also adding staff at a much slower pace, making it harder for workers to enter the market, switch jobs or climb into stronger positions.
Government data backs up that picture. The hiring rate fell to 3.2 percent last November, the weakest level since March 2013. Before the pandemic, that figure stood at 3.9 percent. The comparison is revealing because the last time the hiring rate was this low, the unemployment rate was 7.5 percent and the country was still dealing with the aftershocks of the financial crisis. Today’s much lower unemployment rate therefore gives a more reassuring impression than the flow of new hiring actually supports.
Another sign of strain is the balance between people seeking work and jobs available. There are now 7.4 million unemployed Americans compared with 6.9 million open positions. That marks a clear reversal from the post-pandemic years, when vacancies outnumbered job seekers and workers often had unusual bargaining power.
Graduates and younger workers feel the squeeze most
The pessimism is not evenly distributed. It is especially severe among college graduates, a finding that points to weakness in white-collar hiring rather than across-the-board labor market collapse. Only 19 percent of workers with a college degree say it is a good time to find a quality job, compared with 35 percent of those without a degree.
This split likely reflects the softness that has persisted across many professional sectors, including software, customer service and advertising. For much of the last two years, those industries have offered fewer openings and less mobility than workers had become used to, especially after the hiring boom that followed the pandemic.
Younger Americans are also more downbeat than older ones. Only about two in ten workers aged 18 to 34 say now is a good time to find a job, while roughly four in ten workers aged 65 and older remain positive. That makes sense in a market where established workers benefit from low firing rates, while younger people face the tougher task of breaking in, changing employers or converting temporary work into a stable career path.
Job market anxiety is feeding a darker economic mood
The Gallup findings fit into a wider pattern of public unease. Workers report a dimmer view of both their current lives and future prospects than at any point since 2009, when Gallup began tracking those assessments for the workforce. Other surveys point in the same direction. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index stood at 91.2 in February, far below pre-pandemic levels and not far from the lows seen during the pandemic era.
That weakness in confidence is understandable. In a market where layoffs remain limited but good openings are scarce, many people can feel stuck rather than secure. Younger workers keep searching, graduates feel shut out of white-collar progress and even those with jobs may worry that finding something better has become materially harder.
The broader implication is that a low unemployment rate is no longer enough on its own to sustain confidence in the labor market. Americans appear to be responding to the part of the jobs picture that matters most in daily life: whether opportunity feels available. Right now, for a growing share of the workforce, it clearly does not. That sentiment may become even more important if higher energy costs and slower growth begin to put further pressure on hiring in the months ahead.
