A frozen job market means nobody's getting laid off, but nobody's getting hired

The chant of “low-hire, low-fire” job market has echoed around economic newsrooms throughout the nation for a while now.

The most recent data has only provided more fodder.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s report on initial claims for unemployment benefits came out on Thursday morning, and it was really good — at least on its face. Claims fell by 2,000 last week to a historically-low 197,000. Jobless claims have now come in below 200,000 for four weeks running — the longest stretch since 1969.

Meanwhile, last week’s jobs report showed that job creation isn’t great right now. Employers added just 29,000 jobs nationwide in September.

And perhaps the most painful of the job stats: 27.1% of unemployed Americans have been looking for work for six months or longer — a percentage that has been steadily rising for years now.

Rather than low-hire, low-fire, it might just be a “steady, quite stable job market,” said Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors.

Hatfield said the economy is in a precarious balancing act as it shrinks in some sectors and expands in others.

“We have what would normally create a recession — which is a hawkish Fed, high interest rates, and declining investment in housing,” he said.

But those recession-creators are balanced out by red-hot investment in AI and data centers, which have created new jobs in tech and construction.

Kyle Moore, chief economist at The Century Foundation, offered this alternative catchphrase for the labor market: “Stagnation situation,” he said.

According to Moore, employers are stuck in the mud of policy uncertainty.

“When you have erratic tariff policy, for example, it makes it difficult to make consistent hiring decisions for how you’re going to expand going forward,” he said.

This low-churn, stagnant labor market is especially hard for the long-term unemployed and new entrants to the workforce — because people who do have jobs aren’t making room for them.

“[Job seekers are] more cautious about pursuing different roles,” said Vicki Salemi, career expert at jobs site Monster. “They’re nervous and anxious about leaving the security that they currently have.”

Many are willing to go without a raise rather than quit to find a better job.

“Then, the employer that they’re with doesn't have an opening to replace them, and so other job seekers — there is no opening for them to pursue,” Salemi said.

Salemi has her own alternative metaphor for this labor market.

“It reminds me of a frozen pond,” she said. “Workers — they’re not necessarily falling through the ice, because they’re not getting laid off. They’re skating on thin ice, sticking it out right now.”