September 16, 2024. “The combination of CareerBuilder and Monster brings together two strong, trusted, complementary brands to create a job board with greater scale and reach. Together, both companies can more effectively capitalize on prevailing trends in the market to deliver enhanced growth. Jeff Furman, CEO of the combined company, said: ‘I could not be more excited to bring these two celebrated brands together. We are able to leverage the best-in-class solutions, capabilities, and expertise from both companies to better serve both our candidates and employers and help them navigate the evolving talent marketplace.’”
June 24, 2025. “CareerBuilder + Monster initiated a voluntary Chapter 11 process in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Jeff Furman, CEO of CareerBuilder + Monster, said ‘For over 25 years, we have been a proud leader in helping job seekers and companies connect and empower employment across the globe. However, like many others in the industry, our business has been affected by a challenging and uncertain macroeconomic environment…As a company in the business of people and talent management, reducing our workforce is always a painful step to take.’”
From marrying “two celebrated brands” to “painful steps” in nine short months. The micro afflicting the macro is not isolated to the collapse of CareerBuilder + Monster. Americans are keenly aware that job opportunities aren’t what they used to be either. Yesterday’s Conference Board (Conf Bd) Consumer Confidence report stated that households’ “appraisal of current job availability weakened for the sixth consecutive month” and consumers “were more pessimistic about business conditions and job availability over the next six months.”
The entire U.S. forecasting community was caught off guard. June’s 5.4-point drop came in south of all 47 economists Bloomberg surveyed. Moreover, it contradicted the upside surprise in its sister — June’s preliminary University of Michigan (UMich) sentiment print. A vital difference between the two headlines is that Conf Bd includes assessments about the current and future labor situation while UMich tallies these separately from its top-line sentiment gauge.
Good news on the present labor situation continued to fade. The Jobs Plentiful index fell to 29.2 in June, the lowest since March 2021 (fuchsia line). The three-plus-year down cycle in this measure runs parallel to staffing industry signposts. Indeed job postings topped in March 2022 (teal line), around the same time as Jobs Plentiful, as has been moving down and to the right ever since. LinkUp job openings, which capture help wanted ads from the top 10,000 global employers, followed suit (yellow line).
The flip side to Jobs Plentiful is Jobs Hard to Get. Its claim to fame: It’s one of the best trackers of the official U.S. unemployment rate over all business cycles since the 1970s. In June, it maintained an elevated 18.1 level, close to cycle highs and well above the higher lows reached in January 2024 of 11.0, and January 2025 of 14.5 (red line). Adding Income Expectations to the mix blends consumers’ perceived jobs prospects with their earnings outlook. This forward-looking guide for spending fell a point to 3.9 in June from 4.9 in May and remains below the local high of 8.6 reached last November (green line).
We would add that recent inflection points in Conf Bd’s Vacation Intended series are associated with key dates for Jobs Hard to Get and Income Expectations. The January 2024 low in Hard to Get was a short-run precursor to the February 2024 high in Vacation Intentions (light blue line). And the November 2024 top in Income Expectations presaged the sharp drop off in travel plans in February 2025 – that have not fully recovered in the subsequent four months. These developments reinforce our view that consumer discretionary – and notably, travel – will stay challenged.
QI’s Labor Shock Indicator (LSI) got a fresh coat of paint with June’s Conf Bd data. Fusing the Fewer Jobs index and UMich’s Higher Unemployment Expectations, the LSI closed out the full second quarter with a 90.5 average (lilac line), 10 points above that of the first quarter, at 80.5, and 38 points north of 2024’s fourth quarter of 52.8, which itself was in line with the long-run average of 52.5.
From a cyclical perspective, readings above the 90 threshold have historically accompanied recession and triggered a steepening in the 2-year/10-year Treasury curve, one that’s far from over vis-à-vis the latest reading around 48 basis points (bps, purple line). Since 1978, there have been six other times when the LSI averaged above 90 for an entire quarter; in those instances, the average 2s10s spread was 100 bps.
The fourth chart in today’s quad would further support a bull steepening. Higher unemployment risks are manifest in the Present Situation indices from the nation’s two largest states — California and Texas. The Present Situation compiles views on current business and employment conditions. As Jobs Hard to Get is embedded in these viewpoints, it’s a valuable proxy for each state’s unemployment rate. To wit, both California and Texas are exhibiting deteriorating current conditions amid stable performance for their respective unemployment rates (dark green and dark blue lines). For what it’s worth, in California, the June 105.4 level (light green line) corresponds to the February 2008 figure of 104.7. For Texas, the new cycle low in June of 119.4 comes closest to the July 2008 statistic of 123.4.
Should these implied labor signals portend rising unemployment in the two biggest states, it would have sizable ramifications for the second-half outlook for U.S. consumer spending. California and Texas together account for more than one-fifth of all household purchases. If math is your specialty, this alternative explanation spells out the risk in equation form:
California + Texas = 22% share of spending.