What Americans think of the labor market

Americans worry about inflation, are pessimistic about the economy as a whole, and unhappy with how their leaders are handling it. But they still feel pretty good about the job market.

Fifty-two percent of Americans say it’s a good time to find a job right now, compared to just 11% who say it’s a bad time, according to a survey conducted last month for The New York Times by online research company Momentive. . (The rest say the picture is “mixed,” or left the question unanswered.) Fifty-six percent say the labor market is more favorable to employees than to employers, and a majority believe these conditions will last at least six months. .

Most Americans don’t worry about their jobs being in jeopardy either. Forty-four percent of those surveyed said they feared they or someone in their household would be made redundant in the coming months, up only modestly from 37% just before the pandemic.

“People see the job market as still a bit bright,” said Momentive researcher Brianna Richardson.

The upbeat job outlook contrasts starkly with Americans’ view of the economy as a whole. More than 90% of respondents said they were concerned about inflation, and a majority said their financial situation was worse than a year earlier. Only 17% said the general business conditions in the country were fairly or very good.

Ms Richardson said the findings suggested that bad inflation news trumped good jobs news in Americans’ perception of the economy. This also seems to be true for people’s finances: despite seeing it as an employee-friendly labor market, most workers say they haven’t gotten raises that follow the price hike.

Americans take a dim view of how the White House and Federal Reserve have handled inflation, though the investigation was conducted before Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia signed a bill that , according to Democrats, would help reduce inflation. But those polled don’t necessarily think Republicans would do any better. Forty-four percent of respondents said they thought Democrats would do a better job with the economy, compared with 47 percent who preferred Republicans on the issue. These numbers have changed little since the question was last asked in May 2019.

About the survey: Data for this article comes from an online survey of 5,881 adults conducted by polling company Momentive from July 18 to July 25. The company selected respondents at random from more than two million people who take surveys on its daytime platform. Responses were weighted to match the demographic profile of the United States population. The survey has a modeled error estimate (similar to the margin of error in a standard telephone survey) of plus or minus two percentage points, so differences below this amount are statistically insignificant.