America’s Job Fields Start Acting Like It’s 2020 All Over Again-And Nobody’s Laughing

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The American job market has begun to sag and creak like an old barn door in a dry wind. The Kobeissi Letter reports government job openings fell by 51,000 in February, settling at 701,000.

That number now sits like a tired man on a porch step, marking the second-lowest reading since December 2020. Since the hopeful peaks of 2022, there have been 524,000 fewer openings-vanished like smoke over a field after harvest. We are back to the levels folks once called “normal” in 2017 and 2018, though nobody then thought normal would feel so uneasy later.

Federal openings themselves dropped to 89,000, almost whispering now, the second-lowest since the pandemic days when everything stopped like a struck clock. It is the kind of number that doesn’t shout-it just avoids your eyes.

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“Meanwhile, the government hiring rate stood at 1.4%, one of the lowest levels since mid-2020 and matching the 2016 and 2017 lows. Government hiring is frozen,” the post read.

Out in the private towns and glass office towers, the story does not grow any brighter. Oracle sent as many as 30,000 workers packing on March 31, like a rancher lightening his herd before winter. Amazon trimmed 16,000 corporate roles in January, and Block let go of over 4,000 more. One after another, companies have been cutting jobs the way a farmer cuts costs when the rain forgets to come.

Consumer Sentiment Signals Trouble Ahead

In another note from The Kobeissi Letter, the forward-looking signs suggest unemployment may still be warming up, like a pot left too long on the stove. The Conference Board’s March survey showed only 27.3% of people still believe jobs are “plentiful.”

That is a small rise from 26.7% in February, but still far from the days in 2022 when more than half the country spoke of abundance like it was ordinary weather. Meanwhile, 21.5% now say jobs are “hard to find,” nearly doubling from about 10% not long ago.

The gap between hope and worry-the so-called labor market differential-has narrowed to 5.8 points. That is the lowest since the pandemic year, when uncertainty sat in every kitchen like an uninvited guest who never quite left.

The Kobeissi Letter adds that this measure has often been a stubborn harbinger of recessions, like a dog that starts barking long before the storm arrives.

“Furthermore, current levels in this indicator have only been seen prior to or during a US recession since the 1990s. The job market is set for even more weakness,” the analysts added.

With all these signals pointing in the same direction, the coming March jobs report will be watched the way farmers watch a dark horizon-trying to tell whether it is just weather passing through, or something longer settling in the land.

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2026-04-03 08:17