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USA Today
11 hours ago
- Business
- USA Today
Long-term unemployment hits 2-year high as hiring slows amid economic uncertainty
When Jessica Chibuzor-Muko graduated from college a year ago, she figured her degree in cybersecurity – one of the hottest fields – would serve as a ticket to a near-certain job at a good salary. Then she ran into the brick wall known as the 2025 U.S. job market. After more than 3,000 applications, five interviews and zero job offers, her excitement has congealed into something closer to a beaten-down stupor. 'After your get your first 50 rejections, you're running to your mom crying,' says Chibuzor-Muko, who is 22 and lives in Denton, Texas. 'Eventually, you become very numb to it.' Recently, she took a break from the job hunt, got a part-time position as a nurse's notetaker and is considering a new career path – medicine. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. 'I've always wanted to get a master's,' she said. 'Maybe I should look at medical school.' Chibuzor-Muko is among the 1.7 million Americans who have been out of work six months or longer – the most in more than two years – classifying them as long-term unemployed, the Labor Department's April jobs report showed. Their growing ranks defy the common perception that the job market remains healthy despite the uncertainty spawned by President Donald Trump's sweeping import tariffs. The long-term jobless now make up nearly a quarter of all unemployed workers. That's well below their 45% share during the depths of the Great Recession in 2010 and 43% during the COVID downturn in 2021. But it also marks a two-year high and exceeds the 20% of unemployed workers they comprised in early 2020 just before the health crisis. Economists say that's a concern because long spells of unemployment can affect the course of workers' careers, especially for recent college graduates and other new entrants to the labor market. 'I definitely think there's a stigma to being unemployed for long periods,' said Brad Hershbein, senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. Is the job market good or bad now? It's unusual for so many people to be out of work so long in a seemingly sturdy labor market. Job growth averaged a robust 181,000 in March and April and the unemployment rate is a historically low 4.2%. Friday, Labor is expected to report a solid 150,000 job gains for May, according to estimates by Barclays and Capital Economics. But forecasters largely attribute the rosy figures to business' continued reluctance to lay off workers following pandemic-related labor shortages from 2021 to 2023. Initial claims for unemployment benefits, a reliable gauge of layoffs, unexpectedly surged the week ending May 24 but remain historically low. What is going on with hiring right now? At the same time, companies have pulled back hiring. That trend began more than a year ago as sharp employee pay increases and high interest rates combined with flattening consumer demand to squeeze firms' profits. It intensified this year as Trump's tariffs threatened to reignite inflation, further narrow corporate profit margins and possibly trigger a recession in the months ahead. 'The economy was going to slow regardless' after a post-COVID-19 burst of demand, Hershbein said. "(Tariffs) made the problem worse.' The 5.4 million U.S. hires in March was down from a peak of 6.8 million in November 2021 and 5.8 million in late 2019 before the pandemic. The upshot: While not many people are losing jobs, those who do are struggling to find new roles as they join a slowly widening river of unemployed job seekers who are vying against each other and employed Americans for a limited stock of vacancies. 'Getting back into employment after you've been unemployed is getting increasingly difficult,' said economist Dante DeAntonio of Moody's Analytics. In May, the average number of applications job hunters submitted on LinkedIn was 45% higher than the year ago figure, the networking site says. While companies are replacing employees who leave, 'they're not necessarily adding staff,' said Brandi Britton, an executive director at Robert Half, a recruiting firm. 'Employers are definitely proceeding with caution' amid the uncertainty sparked by trade conflicts. How is the job market for college grads? Unemployed job seekers broadly are paying the price but the hiring chill is especially affecting new entrants to the labor force as well as workers returning after leaving to care for a child or other reasons, Hershbein said. So far this year, the number of 20 to 24-year-olds who are long-term unemployed is up 32% compared to the same period in 2019, versus a 19% rise for similarly idled workers of all ages, Labor Department figures show. During a period of limited hiring and pervasive uncertainty, 'You want people with a track record,' Hershbein said, describing the view of many employers. 'It's just a lot of silence' Chibuzor-Muko, the May 2024 graduate, said she frequently responds to job ads seeking entry-level candidates but companies later reveal they prefer that applicants have three to five years of experience. 'What really is entry level?' she asked. 'I just graduated.' Britton, of Robert Half, said many businesses 'want someone with work experience at an entry-level salary' as they try to conserve cash and minimize risk. And because of the cooling labor market, they generally can get what they want, she said, advising job candidates to 'be adaptive and flexible' and drop demands to work remotely or hybrid if necessary. After she graduated, Chibuzor-Muko said she applied to cybersecurity jobs 'every single day, the second I woke up….I treated it as my job.' But after several months of rejections, her enthusiasm waned, she said, adding she didn't get responses from most employers. This year, Chibuzor-Muko has taken classes online in the hope of qualifying for the more plentiful crop of openings for data analysts. She snared two interviews but no offers. What are the side effects of long-term unemployment? Long-term unemployment can become a self-perpetuating cycle even for experienced workers, Hershbein said, noting some companies believe the skills of long-sidelined job seekers may dull. The dilemma, he said, is amplified for recent graduates who may take the first offer they receive and find themselves overqualified for the job. 'It can have a long-term impact on the money you're able to earn and the companies you're able to work for,' he said. DeAntonio downplayed the concern, saying that while that was a big worry during the Great Recession, today's job market is more resilient and should pick up swiftly after tariff-related uncertainty fades. 'I'd think some of those negative effects will be minimized,' he said. Experienced jobless workers, meanwhile, are also struggling. In mid-May, 1.9 million Americans received ongoing unemployment benefits – indicating they had been laid off – the most since November 2021. 'I had no idea it would take this long' When Kiersten Ortiz-Cole of Houston lost her marketing job at a recruiting agency last August, she figured she would land a new position within a couple of months. Although her firm was chopping workers, its clients were still spending money, seemingly reflecting a stable economy and labor market. 'I had no idea it would take this long,' said Ortiz-Cole, 37, who has nearly a decade of marketing experience. At first, Ortiz-Cole sent out five to 10 applications a week, tailoring each to the relevant employer. But she found that companies were being especially selective, requiring candidates not only to have a marketing background but experience in that company's industry. She also has been frustrated by the job market's seasonal ebbs and flows, Last fall, many businesses dragged their feet on hiring because of uncertainty related to the presidential election and then because of the holidays. Employer interest picked up in January and February but then slowed again in March due to Trump's tariffs. 'It's just been a rollercoaster,' she said. Early this year, she decided to focus more on burnishing her skills through online marketing courses, connecting with people she knows on LinkedIn and attending networking events for marketing professionals. But the latter strategy fizzled when most of the attendees turned out to be unemployed themselves. They 'were in the same boat as I was,' she said. Ortiz-Cole has notched seven or eight interviews and twice made it to the third round. But one hiring manager told her he still had 600 resumes to review. And when job postings pop up on LinkedIn, they often draw about 100 applications within a couple of hours, she said. 'It's extremely discouraging and deflating because you don't have any control,' she said. In January, she began several rounds of interviews with a company over three months, feeling confident it would culminate in a job offer. But a candidate who was already working got the position. 'That was my low point,' she said. 'Living day by day' Ortiz-Cole's unemployment benefits have long run out. She and her husband, who is employed, were already 'living paycheck to paycheck' before her layoff to afford their mortgage and daycare for their 5-year-old son, she said. She has increasingly excised small pleasures from her life: streaming services, ordering dinner deliveries a few times a week, clothes shopping and a morning coffee from a local shop. She burned through most of her 401(k) money to pay off a car loan and maxed out her credit cards. 'We're constantly having conversations,' she said. 'We're living day by day and prepared to make whatever necessary cuts we have to make.' She said she's cautiously optimistic hiring will perk up soon but employers don't seem to have any clearer picture. As recently as early April, myHR Partner, a human resources consulting firm, planned to add nine employees to its staff of 41, said Tina Hamilton, who owns the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based company. But after Trump announced global reciprocal tariffs on April 2, demand for her hiring services plunged 50%, she said. While revenue from its payroll, employee relations and other HR services is up this year, its overall sales are flat because of the hiring pullback, prompting Hamilton to scale back her own hiring plans. She's looking to add just one or two employees in 2025. 'It happened almost suddenly,' she said. The trade war, meanwhile, has been in near-constant flux. This week, an international trade court struck down most of Trump's reciprocal fees but they remain in place while officials appeal the ruling. And Trump could adopt other legal strategies to impose tariffs, experts say. 'Nobody knows what to believe,' Hamilton said. 'Everyone's delaying… everyone's waiting.'
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
National Job Corps 'pause' will affect nearly 800 in Albany
ALBANY – The abrupt announcement of a 'pause' of Job Corps operations across the country will be a big blow to Albany, where the current 510 students and nearly 300 staff members are looking at being off the campus by the end of next week. On Friday morning all web pages related to Turner Job Corps had been scoured, replaced with a single entry that appeared on all pages titled 'Beyond Job Corps,' giving referrals to other options including the U.S. Department of Labor's CareerOneStop, federal Pell grants and the military. The Labor Department has told Job Corps locations to have students and staff 'transitioned' off campus by June 6. Job Corps provides free residential education and job training program for students ages 16-24. 'It's very devastating,' Albany City Commissioner Jon Howard, in whose Ward 2 the sprawling center is located, said. 'Those are people that are going to have to find somewhere to go and to find jobs. That's not as easy as people think, especially for those that are homeless. I'm depressed and sad it's happening.' Of the student contingent, 19% are listed as housing-insecure or homeless, placing them in a potentially precarious position. Howard said on Friday afternoon that he was reaching out to city staff to determine if there is anything that it can do on an emergency basis to assist those who are in need of a place to stay. Coming on the heels of the announcement two weeks ago of the layoff of 535 workers at the Georgia-Pacific container board plant in Early County, the news is grim, state Rep. Gerald Greene, R-Cuthbert, said. 'It's another shock in southwest Georgia,' he said. 'With the closing of the Turner Job Corps … that organization has been there for a long time and it has had great success for a lot of individuals. It really is a blow for the Albany area and the region, and it's going to affect us again.' After hearing about the announcement Thursday evening, the legislator said he has been in touch with Dougherty County officials as well as the Albany Area Chamber of Commerce.. 'We've got to find out what's going on and see if there's anything we can do other than say we support them,' Greene said. 'We need to see how we can support them and be effective. We've just got to get together with our chamber folks and county and city and see what we can do.' The number of students and employees affected in such a short timeframe is especially concerning, Greene said, especially with the closing coming so unexpectedly and with so little time to prepare. State officials were completely caught off guard by the Department of Labor's announcement. 'We have a lot of individuals who are going to end up in a bad posture,' Greene said, 'especially those homeless individuals. We have no place to house them at this particular time.'
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Outrage after Trump administration suspends job training program for low-income youth
The Trump administration's Department of Labor announced on Thursday it would suspend operations of the Job Corps training program, prompting bipartisan criticism. 'The Department should have attempted to fix them but, instead of working with the contractors and helping students, they've just decided to send the students home,' Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, wrote in a statement. 'The Department of Labor apparently has no plans for an improved product or a new approach. This careless approach will upset the lives of too many ambitious members of a future workforce, and should be condemned.' Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, also said she 'strongly' opposes pausing the program as part of the administration's push to cut spending, calling the Job Corps centers in her state 'important pillars of support for some of our most disadvantaged young adults.' The Labor Department announced the shift on Thursday, saying it 'reflects the Administration's commitment to ensure federal workforce investments deliver meaningful results for both students and taxpayers.' It argued the program, created in 1964 to offer free residential education and job training to low-income teens and young adults, was delivering poor results. 'Job Corps was created to help young adults build a pathway to a better life through education, training, and community,' Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement announcing the pause, which will occur by the end of June. 'However, a startling number of serious incident reports and our in-depth fiscal analysis reveal the program is no longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve.' The Department said the program ran a $140 million deficit last year. In 2023, according to government data, the program spent over $80,000 per pupil to achieve a 38.6 percent graduation rate. Other critics took issue with the legality of pausing the program, which has served over 2 million people. 'Congress appropriated funding for Job Corps, and the Trump Administration can't just decide to not spend it because they want to make room for tax cuts for billionaires,' Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, said in a statement to The Hill. The administration has pushed for other cuts at the Labor Department, including seeking to cancel leases held by the Mine Safety and Health Administration, though this week it dropped that effort. The Trump administration's 2026 budget has proposed cutting 4,000 full-time staffers from the department, about a quarter of its current workforce.
The Independent
17 hours ago
- Business
- The Independent
Outrage after Trump administration suspends job training program for low-income youth
The Trump administration 's Department of Labor announced on Thursday it would suspend operations of the Job Corps training program, prompting bipartisan criticism. 'The Department should have attempted to fix them but, instead of working with the contractors and helping students, they've just decided to send the students home,' Representative Steve Cohen, Democrat of Tennessee, wrote in a statement. 'The Department of Labor apparently has no plans for an improved product or a new approach. This careless approach will upset the lives of too many ambitious members of a future workforce, and should be condemned.' Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, also said she 'strongly' opposes pausing the program as part of the administration's push to cut spending, calling the Job Corps centers in her state 'important pillars of support for some of our most disadvantaged young adults.' The Labor Department announced the shift on Thursday, saying it 'reflects the Administration's commitment to ensure federal workforce investments deliver meaningful results for both students and taxpayers.' It argued the program, created in 1964 to offer free residential education and job training to low-income teens and young adults, was delivering poor results. 'Job Corps was created to help young adults build a pathway to a better life through education, training, and community,' Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement announcing the pause, which will occur by the end of June. 'However, a startling number of serious incident reports and our in-depth fiscal analysis reveal the program is no longer achieving the intended outcomes that students deserve.' The Department said the program ran a $140 million deficit last year. In 2023, according to government data, the program spent over $80,000 per pupil to achieve a 38.6 percent graduation rate. Other critics took issue with the legality of pausing the program, which has served over 2 million people. 'Congress appropriated funding for Job Corps, and the Trump Administration can't just decide to not spend it because they want to make room for tax cuts for billionaires,' Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, said in a statement to The Hill. The administration has pushed for other cuts at the Labor Department, including seeking to cancel leases held by the Mine Safety and Health Administration, though this week it dropped that effort. The Trump administration's 2026 budget has proposed cutting 4,000 full-time staffers from the department, about a quarter of its current workforce.
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
‘The Buyer is God': How Unfair Purchasing Practices Occur ‘With Impugnity' in India's Garment Industry
Fashion brands in the United States, United Kingdom and European Union sourcing garments in India are canceling orders, delaying payments, soliciting discounts and failing to account for rising labor and material costs, according to a new survey of nearly 200 suppliers across seven of the South Asian nation's states. The numbers, gleaned from July to December, paint an alarming picture of an industry under duress. Some 44 percent of respondents, for instance, reported brands insisting on discounts after the contracts were agreed upon, while 53 percent said they've received cancellations in the middle of production. Another 52 percent said that buyers don't adjust for increased prices of inputs like fabric, and 81 percent said any uptick in minimum wages was ignored. One-third (33 percent) of those polled said they had their payments held back by three months or more. Half of the suppliers reported brands quoting a large order size before reducing it—and keeping the cost per item unchanged. More from Sourcing Journal Labor Department, Which 'Ridiculed Supporting Worker Rights Abroad,' Responds to ILAB Lawsuit Activists Know How to Stop Sexual Violence in the Garment Supply Chain. Will Brands Buy In? BGMEA Seeks 3-Month Delay for India's Land Port Ban on Garment Exports '[Our contract said] 'payment terms may be subject to change based on internal policies,'' one supplier was quoted as saying. 'What does that even mean? It means that they can delay payment whenever they want. And if we protest, they will say, 'We will reconsider working with you in the future.'' While Dev Nathan, the Institute of Human Development professor who co-authored the study for the British nonprofit Transform Trade, said he's hard to surprise, he admitted he was taken aback by how entrenched these unfair purchasing practices were. They're better—but just barely—than the brand actions at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, when 80 percent of the same manufacturers said they experienced canceled orders, 70 percent saw delayed payments by more than three months and 49 percent fielded demands for price reductions on orders placed before the disease reared its head. All of these, he said, can result in significant repercussions for manufacturers who may wind up selling their goods below what it costs to make them. This isn't conjecture: More than half (54 percent) of respondents reported having to undercut the price of their production for one or more of their contracts. A burgeoning number also said they're being increasingly forced to pony up for quality checks by brand-appointed purchase agents, third-party audits and even the hotel and transportation expenses of visiting representatives. 'I have been doing research on global value chains for quite a long while now,' he said. 'I knew these actions existed, but we've never done a large enough study to get an idea of how pervasive they are and with what impunity they are being practiced.' While Nathan didn't interview garment workers directly, since they weren't the focus of the study, suppliers reported bumping up working hours (77 percent), the number of contract workers (64 percent) and production targets (58 percent) to cope with sudden contractual changes. What happens next is that workers—most of them women under the age of 35—are seen as almost disposable units of labor. 'There's this burning out, what we call the 'mining of the body,'' he said. 'And then they get thrown out, and they go into even worse-paid work, like in an unregistered workshop or at home because they still have families to support and children to raise.' Even so, 90 percent of the surveyed manufacturers said they avoid resorting to legal action when their buyers breach their agreements, saying that it would be too expensive or too risky reputationally. The potential loss of business is also why, unlike Transform Trade's previous study of Bangladesh's sourcing landscape, suppliers were hesitant to name and shame the offending brands. The industry in India is smaller, they reasoned, making it easier to suss out potential whistleblowers. 'There is a fear of retaliatory action if the brands come to know who named them,' Nathan said. 'One manufacturer had a sign in his factory that read, 'The Buyer is God.' So, we did not press manufacturers to name brands. As researchers, our interest in any case was to establish the extent of unfair contracting practices by brands, an analysis which does not require naming them.' What's evident, however, is that poor commercial practices persist despite their growing awareness—and efforts by Cascale and other multi-stakeholder organizations to nip them in the bud. That the research took place before the imposition of additional 10 percent tariffs by the Trump administration—with the potential for more—can only be expected to exacerbate these trends. 'The need for governments and international organizations to take action to ensure fair purchasing practices and decent conditions of work could not be more urgent,' said Mark Anner, dean and distinguished professor at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, who has conducted extensive field research of global supply chains, including in India, where he found that the real dollar price paid by U.S. buyers tumbled by nearly 63 percent from 1994 to 2017. He had only one word to describe this extreme contraction: 'predatory.' 'This research indicates that manufacturers continued to be squeezed by brands and retailers,' Anner added. 'They are squeezed on price, squeezed on order size and squeezed through payment delays. And we know from prior research that this squeeze is transferred to workers through increased production targets and working hours [and] reductions in real wages.' Those seeking change in the industry, such as the Sustainable Terms of Trade Initiative, have called for model contract clauses, underpinned by the United Nations Guiding Principles and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct, that will provide suppliers with some manner of recourse when brands terminate orders. They would also include buyer obligations such as setting reasonable deadlines, paying prices that can sufficiently uphold responsible business conduct and making accurate—and steadfast—forecasts about requirements. But change has been slow. 'I use the term monopsony to describe this,' Nathan said. 'Monopsony is when there are a few buyers and lots of sellers. It's the other side of monopoly, when there are a few sellers and lots of buyers. Competition among garment manufacturing companies and countries has grown over the last few years—Africa, for example, has also gotten into manufacturing garments—so that means that brands have greater bargaining power.' Transform Trade has thrown its support behind calls in Britain for a garment trade adjudicator, similar to what it already has in the groceries sector, to ensure that brands selling to the U.K. market adhere to a statutory code. The EU's directive on unfair trading practices in the agricultural and food supply chain, it says, can further act as a model for a directive banning unscrupulous buyer behavior in the apparel industry. 'There's a lot of voluntary work around purchasing practices, and we just don't have the regulation that actually keeps [brands] to it,' said Hilary Marsh, garment policy advisor at Transform Trade. 'The way it works with groceries is that it's its own entity, and it does its own investigations based on complaints that can be shared anonymously. So that helps with the issue of suppliers not wanting to speak up and [identifying] who they are.' Having that kind of watchdog mechanism in place is even more critical during a time of economic volatility, she said. It's one thing to voluntarily take the high road when 'things are good,' it's another when tumultuous conditions impinge upon a company's bottom line. Creating regulation with real teeth, on the other hand, could help redress a buyer-supplier power imbalance that has continually stoked exploitation. 'Usually, the first people to be harmed in that are the garment workers, and the risk is put down to the manufacturers,' Marsh said. 'There was a big spark in public recognition and public outcry around what was suddenly very visible during the pandemic of these practices happening. And they're still happening. It is the way of the business.'
