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sort of, the multiple jobholders rate *has* been increasing since Covid, but it's not very cyclical so it's hard to take as a sign that the job market is improving/declining fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02...

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The share of workers unemployed 27+ weeks (over half a year) rose to 27.1% in September. The rise in long-term unemployment we've seen in the last few years is unusual outside of a recession/recent recession recovery. And that may help explain the anxiety workers have about today's job market.

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The Black unemployment rate jumped to 7% in September, highest since April. Though this did come with a rebound in labor force participation and the employment-population ratio for Black workers. These serieses w/ small sample sizes are often volatile month-to-month.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% in September, from 4.1%. Though this came with a rebound in labor force participation, up to 61.8% & highest since May. Similarly, prime age (25–54) labor force participation rebounded to its highest level since May.

Average hourly earnings grew 3% year-over-year, down from 3.1% in August and 3.2% in July. Slowing wage gains are unfortunately coinciding with resurgent inflation. Annual wage growth will likely be negative after adjusting for inflation when Sep CPI data is out 10/14.

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Throw back to 2025: Health care & social assistance added 23,000 jobs. All other industries added 6,000 on net. 2026 has seen stronger jobs growth in non-health care industries than in 2024–2025, but September featured softer growth both inside and outside health care.

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Taking a longer view, professional & business services, education, government, finance, information all shed jobs in Q3. Health care has slowed though still positive. Manufacturing, construction, transportation & warehousing are pockets of improvement.

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Government still led job losses due to local government excluding education (-10,600). Temporary help services (-10,900) dragged down prof & biz services. Finance and information also saw broad-based job losses in September.

The swing from July to August is overstated by local government education, which dropped sharply in July & mostly rebounded in August (seasonal adjustment is hard!). On net, local govt edu lost only 4,500 jobs over the last 3 months. Private payrolls alone show more steady growth during the summer

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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Payroll employment rose 29,000 in September, much slower than expectation and below the 133,000 jobs added in August. Additionally, August was revised down from +162,000 and July to -10,000 from +21,000. Still struggling to show consistent improvement in the pace of jobs growth.

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Initial unemployment insurance claims were little changed again last week at 197,000 vs. 198,000 the prior week. Continuing claims fell to 1,701,000 from 1,712,000, the lowest level since April 2023, adding to the evidence that the job market improved in September.

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One place lower hiring is showing up in particular is information (which includes media & tech). Information hiring tumbled to 1.6% in August, lowest level since October 2023 and just a hair above a record low. *This series is volatile so take sharp swings w/ a grain of salt

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Job openings are roughly where we would expect them given the current unemployment rate (4.1%), but hires and quits remain unusually low, pointing to a lack of healthy turnover in the job market as employers limit hiring plans and workers sit tight.

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Layoffs & discharges fell to 1,641,000 in August, down from 1,702,000 in July. Layoffs are at their lowest level since March 2025. The series is volatile but the improvement does align with falling unemployment insurance claims pointing to fewer layoffs.

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Job openings fell to 7,079,000, lowest level since March. Despite the mid-2026 bump, the trend in job openings has also remained fairly flat for over a year.

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The hires rate improved ever so slightly in August, rising to 3.3% from 3.2%, though it remains fairly unchanged over the last year despite some up-and-down swings. Similarly, the quits rate was flat at 1.9% and remains low.

Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The Glassdoor Employee Confidence Index fell to a third record low of 2026 in September, the lowest level in a decade. 42.9% of employees reported a positive business outlook for their employers, down from 44.5% in August. www.glassdoor.com/blog/glassdo...

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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

BLS employee tenure data shows that younger workers have slightly increased their median tenure at a job over the last 20 years while mid-career workers age 35–64 have decreased their median tenure. Source: www.bls.gov/news.release...

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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Initial unemployment insurance claims were little changed last wk: 197,000 vs. 198,000 the prior wk. Continuing claims were also little changed at 1,719,000 vs. 1,717,000 the prior wk. Both are down ~10% year-over-year Continuing claims are for Labor Day wk so there may be residual seasonality

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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

US job postings at Indeed are in positive territory again, up year-over-year for the first time since October 2022. LinkedIn post: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

Screenshot of LinkedIn post from Laura Ullrich, Director, Economic Research at Indeed 9/23/2026:

"For the first time in four years, US job postings on Indeed have grown year-over-year. The metric ticked into positive territory on September 15, its first positive reading since October 22, 2022. We'll have more to say in our official Labor Market Snapshot tomorrow, but this was too interesting not to share today!"

Line chart underneath titled "Job postings are up 0.7% from a year ago". Shows year-over-year growth in Indeed Job Postings Index which has been negative though with the YoY % growth rate becoming less negative since 2023, until finally crossing into positive as of September 15, 2026.

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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

By contrast, CFO survey from Richmond/Atlanta Feds + Duke shows a slight downtick in optimism in Q3 2026: Optimism about own company: 60.3, from 60.6 About U.S. economy: 69.7, from 70.7 www.richmondfed.org/research/nat...

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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

BLS plans to release an analysis of non/late-response bias in the CES by the end of 2026 Source: conference.nber.org/conf_papers/...

screenshot of the following text:
"Additionally, BLS has engaged with a contractor to produce a nonresponse bias analysis that can be reproduced periodically on an ongoing basis. This analysis relies on comparing the administrative employment values from the UI tax system of the selected and responding samples, examining their differences, based on relevant covariates. The analysis also examines characteristics of late CES responders with respect to their potential effect on monthly revisions. BLS plans to make the results of the study available to the public by the end of 2026."

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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Another piece in Indeed's series on data center jobs, this time focused on the buildout in Europe hiringlab.indeed.com/uk/blog/2026...

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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

CEO survey from Business Roundtable for Q3 2026 suggests improving hiring conditions w/ 36% expecting to increase employment over the next 6 months vs. 37% no change vs. 28% decrease. Best since Q4 2024. Overall CEO economic outlook also improved to highest since Q2 2022

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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Initial unemployment insurance claims fell last week to 196,000 from 206,000. Continuing claims fell to 1,730,000 from 1,769,000, the lowest level since Jan 2024, and the 4-week moving average for continuing claims is down 9% year-over-year.

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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

New business applications were down 7.8% in August, but remain up 11.4% year-over-year. Business applications with planned wages fell 1.9% in August, but are down 14.5% year-over-year and are at their lowest since April 2020 and lower than any pre-Covid point going back to start of data in 2004.

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Similarly, Bank of America Institute data has shown an improvement in job switcher wage growth in the last few months as well. Source: institute.bankofamerica.com/content/dam/...

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Interestingly a few private data sources show a similar trend. ADP has job switcher wage growth at 4.7% vs. 3% for stayers as of August, a slight widening since the end of 2025. Source: payinsights.adp.com

Atlanta Fed Wage Growth Tracker shows a widening job switcher pay premium with job switchers seeing 5% wage growth in August vs. 3.6% for job stayers. Source: www.atlantafed.org/research-and...

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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Initial unemployment insurance claims were little changed last week at 206,000, vs. 207,000 the prior week. Continuing claims were also little changed at 1,774,000, vs. 1,775,000 the prior week. Both are solidly below year-ago levels.

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Younger workers and women in particular are most negative about AI in their Glassdoor reviews. In 2025–6, 45% of men's mentions of AI are positive, while for women, it's only 32%. For Gen Z overall, only 33% are positive. For Gen Z men, it's 42% and for Gen Z women, it falls further to 21%.

Dumbbell chart showing the share of mentions of AI in Glassdoor reviews (2025-2026) that are positive with points for men, women, and women (adjusted) across Gen X, millennial, Gen Z. The "women (adjusted)" point includes logistic regression based controls for occupation and industry. Women are less positive across all three generations. The adjustment suggests this is entirely due to differences in occupational/industry mix for Gen X women vs. men; however, there is basically no change from the adjustment for Gen Z women vs. men, suggesting the difference there has little to do with differences in occupation/industry mix

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yup that looks about right to me 🦀 source: mydialect.us

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One blemish on the report is rising long-term unemployment. The average unemployed workers has now been out of work for over half a year (26.3 weeks).

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The unemployment rate for workers age 20–24 was flat in August at 7.1%, though this represents an improvement over last August when the rate was 9.2%.

The Black unemployment rate fell to 6%, lowest since February 2025. This also came with a slight improvement in Black labor force participation to 61.6% in August from 61.3%, though the rate remains below recent peaks.

Financial activities includes insurance which shed 6,300 jobs in August. The claims adjusting industry specifically has shrank more dramatically with employment falling 21% in July 2026 vs. July 2025 That aligns with recent Glassdoor research on the pressure claims adjusters are feeling about AI

Average hourly earnings grew 3.1% year-over-year, a slowdown from 3.2% in July. Over the last 3 months, wages grew at an annualized 2.8% rate. Deceleration in professional & business services, leisure & hospitality are contributing to softer recent wage growth.

Blue-collar industries like leisure & hospitality, manufacturing, construction, transportation & warehousing show signs of improving job gains. Conversely, health care is decelerating. And education, government, information & finance are still shedding jobs.

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Jobs growth was broad-based in August with gains in all major sectors (except information & finance). Interestingly, health care jobs growth has slowed AND other industries are more than picking up the slack.

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Payroll employment grew by 162,000 in August, smashing expectations. July was also revised into positive territory: -23,000 to +21,000. The unusual July dip in local government education jobs also mostly reversed in August. As a result, private payrolls show less of a swing from July to August.

The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1% in Aug. Encouragingly, labor force participation (LFP) rebounded to 61.6% from 61.4%. Prime-age LFP, however, was unchanged in Aug & remains below recent peaks. Workers across the prime-age ranges have all seen LFP declines over the last 3 months.

Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

BLS releases a CPS research series looking at reemployment rates for the long-term unemployed (people unemployed at least half a year) and that reemployment rate has been declining since the beginning of 2025. Source: Richmond Fed research, www.richmondfed.org/research/nat...

Line chart showing the probability of reemployment for long-term unemployed persons (27+ weeks unemployed) continues to decline. As of July 2026, the 12-month moving average probability was 14.3 percent, with the bold blue line (12-month average) in Figure 2 depicting a declining trend since the start of 2025. These levels are much lower than during the tight labor market of 2022 but similar to those observed from 2016 to 2017.

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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Data centers resulting in increased competition for construction workers Aug 2026 Beige Book, Richmond

Screenshot from Beige Book, August 2026, Richmond Fed. Highlighted quote is: "Data center construction has further strained labor availability, with contacts reporting increased competition from non-local companies pursuing data center work."

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Daniel Zhao @danielzhao.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Occupational exposure to AI positively correlates with mentions of AI in Glassdoor reviews (more exposed workers are more likely to mention AI), but they are ALSO positively correlated with sentiment (more exposed workers are more positive about AI).

2 panel bar chart. Left chart shows share of Glassdoor reviews that mention AI on the y-axis, with AI-exposure quintiles from Elondou et al. 2023 on the x-axis. Right chart shows share of AI mentions in Glassdoor reviews that are positive on the y-axis, same x-axis of AI-exposure quintiles.

Quintiles 1 and 2 have very low mention rates while 3–5 have much higher mention rates and have seen much more of an increase over the last year. But positivity shows a similar pattern where quintiles 1–2 have low positivity rates and quintiles 3–5 are more positive even though they are more exposed

Layoffs fell to 1,666,000 in July, down from 1,785,000 in June. Layoffs remain below pre-Covid averages and the JOLTS data aligns with other indicators like unemployment insurance claims which point to limited layoffs.

For July's unemployment rate (4.1%), job openings are not unusually high/low, but both hires & quits are unusually low, pointing to a lack of healthy churn in the job market, where workers are unable to find better jobs to quit and move into.

Job openings are essentially unchanged, rising slightly to 7,271,000 in July from 7,182,000 in June. Job openings have improved slightly since the end of 2025 though have mostly moved sideways over the last 2 years.

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