Friday’s jobs report showed surprising strength in the labor market, but there are signs that all may not be well for all workers. Quitting in low-wage sectors such as retail, leisure and hospitality is slowing down, said Nick Bunker, an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab. That means people working in those sectors probably have less bargaining power than before, he told MarketWatch.
Here’s why: people quitting their jobs is an indicator of job seekers’ confidence that they can go out and find new jobs. Quitting rates can also predict what’s going to happen to wage growth in the months ahead. “High quit rate means that there are more workers than usual expressing their desires by leaving their old jobs. The vast majority of them are going to new jobs,” Bunker said. To be sure, the quit rate is still higher than pre-pandemic rates, and people are still switching jobs for higher pay, Bunker said, but the cooling trend is pretty clear, especially in retail. The quit rate in the leisure and hospitality and retail trade sectors peaked near the end of 2021 and early 2022, and started decreasing at the beginning of the year, according to an Indeed an …