Why the job market has weakened — and what to do about it

The outlook seems to be getting worse for job seekers.

The U.S. economy added just 22,000 jobs in August, below expectations, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

Meanwhile, a data revision showed the economy lost 13,000 jobs in June — the first month of job losses since December 2020. That loss ends the consecutive-job-growth streak that had lasted 53 months, from January 2021 through May 2025, according to Daniel Zhao, chief economist at Glassdoor, a career site.

Outside of the pandemic, the U.S. economy hasn’t added this few jobs in the first eight months of a year since 2010, around the Great Recession, wrote Laura Ullrich, director of economic research for North America at Indeed.

“August’s Employment Report confirmed that the labour market has headed off a cliff-edge,” Bradley Saunders, a North America economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note Friday.

The report piles on top of other data issued this week showing a frozen labor market for job seekers, economists said.

In July, the number of unemployed people eclipsed the number of job openings for the first time since April 2021, according to BLS data issued Wednesday.

Employers have been hiring at the slowest pre-pandemic pace since about 2013. Meanwhile, layoffs have been low by historical standards, suggesting employers are in a holding pattern amid economic uncertainty and policy changes like tariffs, economists said.

Of course, the unemployment rate — which is at its highest in almost four years — is still at a “perfectly healthy level” relative to historical standards, Saunders wrote.

Hiring in certain sectors like healthcare and hospitality also remains “decent,” Ullrich wrote. But there’s risk ahead that healthcare hiring slows further amid reduced federal Medicaid and social assistance funding in coming months and years, she wrote.

All told, it’s a “really challenging” environment for jobseekers, said Mandi Woodruff-Santos, a career coach.

“Think of the worst game of musical chairs you ever played, where there are 12 chairs and they’ve let 100 people go after those 12 chairs,” she said. “That’s kind of how it feels these days.”

It’s also important to keep your skills “sharp,” by staying current on new software your industry may be using, for example, Woodruff-Santos said.

Show off the skills and knowledge you already have to your professional network, leveraging online platforms like LinkedIn to talk about what you do or are passionate about, she added. It’s a good way to get attention from people who may not remember you.

“You can create your own platform,” Woodruff-Santos said. “Use your voice.”

The main thing is to keep “moving forward and doing something,” perhaps by getting a part-time job in the meantime or broadening your job search to sectors in which your skills are transferrable, Ullrich said. Even volunteer opportunities can look like work experience on a resume, which may show hiring managers you are adaptive, she added.

Additionally, don’t overlook “pivoting in place,” Woodruff-Santos said. Seek out opportunities to advance internally at your current company, whether taking on more responsibility, seeking a promotion or shadowing someone to pick up new skill sets, she said. There are ways to be entrepreneurial in your current job to set you up for future success, she said.

“What people really need right now is patience,” Woodruff-Santos said.

“You’ll start to feel like there’s no hope, but you can’t let that cloud weigh you down,” she said — lean on colleagues, friends, peers and coaching communities to help keep you going.