Graph of the Week – What is going on in the US labour market?

A graph showing US labor market trends from 1999 to 2025, including job leavers and job availability.

Former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan saw the percentage of people out of work because they quit their jobs voluntarily (‘job leavers’) as a good indicator of the economy’s health. The view was that a high number of leavers indicated that people had found a better job or were confident they would. In the US today the figure is 10.7% versus 12% on average in 2024. Another measure of how households see the labour market is the difference in responses between ‘Jobs easy to get’ and ‘Jobs hard to get’. This fell to 11.3% in July, the lowest level for this economic cycle.

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