Hiring Cools

Hiring cools

U.S. hiring is starting to slow. But for now, there is little reason to worry. The pace of job growth is slipping as the decade-plus U.S. economic expansion has matured. There are simply fewer unemployed people seeking work, so the slowdown is organic rather than troublesome. Monthly hiring has declined 2.2% for the year-ended in June, according to the Labor Department. This pullback has corresponded with a decline in net monthly job growth, which compares new hires against worker separations. During the past three months, job gains have averaged a paltry 140,000 a month. That’s down sharply from an average of 237,000 for the same period in 2018. The three-month average can be volatile, but the trend since April shows a cooling job market