News Summary

• US businesses are hiring at roughly the same rate as they were two years ago.
• Weak hiring gives workers fewer jobs worth quitting for, while fewer quits give employers fewer new positions to fill.
• An aging workforce could be contributing to the trend, since older workers tend to switch jobs less often.
• Retirements and slowing immigration have also contributed to a shrinking labor force over the past year, which could make it harder for some companies to find qualified workers to hire.
• "The labor market remains low-hire and low-fire, and at this point, it's starting to look less like a phase and more like the new normal," Sneha Puri, an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, wrote in a blog post earlier this month.