Introduction
Welcome to Recruiting Realities, today we’re teaming up with Joveo’s very own labor market expert, David Garrett, to break down the May 2025 US jobs report. We’ll dive into the latest job numbers, the ever-shifting revisions, and what the “JOLTS” data (Job Openings and Labor Turnover) is telling us about employer and employee confidence. Get ready to uncover some key takeaways for the current hiring landscape!
Yazad Dalal: Hi everyone, I’m Yazad Dalal, Chief Growth Officer here at Joveo and welcome to Recruiting Realities where we bring you the latest developments and insights in recruitment. Today we’re speaking about the US jobs report for May 2025 with our own in-house labor market economist, David Garrett. Hello, David.
And for our listeners at Joveo, we publish interactive insights across all major occupations in the US. You can check that out on our website, joveo.com/interactive-insights.
David, the most recent US jobs report came out for May. I think we added 139,000 jobs, which is above the 126,000 that were forecasted. It’s the 53rd month in a row where job growth has trended upwards. I think the other piece of information they shared was that March was revised downwards. I think that’s the second time they’ve done that from 185,000 down to 120 and April’s numbers were also revised downwards by 30,000 jobs. So all that to say though the unemployment rate stays the same 4.2%.
I think across the sectors we saw continued gains in health care, leisure and hospitality, social assistance, and no surprise, federal government employment continues to decline. We’re also seeing impact from that in our own data.
At Joveo, we’re seeing increases in applications across multiple sectors from ex-government employees. Feedback from our clients is that they’re very highly qualified in many cases, but because they sometimes lack private sector experience, it may not make them the best fit for some roles.
So, David, I have lots of questions. Let’s get started. First of all, what were some of your key takeaways from this latest report?
David Garrett: Well yeah I mean, much like you know last month’s report, the above expected growth is great to see and, you know, but some of the details around the unemployment flows are where we’re kind of starting to see the the weakness in the labor market that I know we talked about previously, you know, more people became unemployed due to separations, fewer unemployed people found jobs, and fewer people previously, not the labor force, began to seek work. You know, you don’t really see that whenever the unemployment rate as a poll stays rounded at that 4.2%, but it did slightly go up by like I think it’s like .06%. You know, and that last point in particular about people who were previously not in the labor force beginning to seek work is related to that decrease we saw in the report about the labor force participation rate which I think went around, there’s about 700,000 people and, you know, actually switching over to a different report which we don’t talk about too much, but is still very relevant, is the JOLTS data.
Yazad Dalal: Okay, so hold on a second, let’s translate that for our audience. JOLTS data is the Job Openings and Labor Turnover data, right? I mean, JOLTS sounds like a Marvel superhero, so I just want to make it clear. Job openings and labor turnover.
David Garrett: Yeah, not as fun or interesting, but yeah, job openings and labor turnover. But you know, the JOLTS data is always about a month behind, but you know it shows job openings, hires, anybody who quit or was laid off things like that. But you know it showed an increase in both hires and layoffs and a decrease in quits. You know, because it’s a month behind, you know, you can’t perfectly match up but with that there’s been a downward trend over the past few months with layoffs which have trended upwards and downward trends in quits and hires.
You know, I believe Dave mentioned something last month whenever we connected about TalentNeuron seeing organizations pull back on hiring. And you know, it really I think reflects this current landscape we’re seeing where organizations are slowing down on hiring and, you know, there’s lower employer confidence, lower worker confidence, and there’s a lot more hesitation around making job swaps or big hiring changes.
I think that’s a big takeaway. So as confidence in both the employer and employee side go down you see fewer hires, fewer quits. I like that kind of terminology, hires and quits. So, we’re not going to see the Great Resignation 2 anytime soon, it sounds like.
Yazad Dalal: Well, thank you, David. And big thank you to all of our listeners. Don’t forget to visit us at joveo.com and we will see you again soon.
Conclusion
During this episode we discovered that while the overall unemployment rate stayed steady, there are subtle signs of a slowing labor market, with fewer people finding jobs or entering the workforce. Plus, the JOLTS data confirms a general hesitation from both employers and employees, suggesting we’re in for a period of cautious hiring. For more information on this, be sure to check out more insights and reports here!
