Listings for new federal jobs are rising again in post-DOGE era

Companies are hiring, but not as much as they were a few years ago.

After a burst of new job openings and hiring in the spring, a resurgent U.S. labor market appears to have lost some momentum.

Job openings dipped in June to a three-month low of 7.4 million, the government said Tuesday.

Hiring rose slightly to 5.35 million, but companies are adding far fewer workers than they did during the postpandemic boom in job creation from 2021 to 2023.

The good news is that layoffs also remained historically low. Businesses aren't adding or destroying many jobs, what economists call the "low hire, low-fire" economy.

The seeming lull in job postings and hiring likely stems in part from the five-month-old conflict with Iran and the spike in oil prices.

The war raised economic uncertainty, created supply shortages and forced companies to spend more on energy, adding upward pressure on U.S. inflation.

Companies are also dabbling with artificial intelligence to see if AI can replace some jobs, particularly entry-level positions typically filled by young people.

Job openings averaged roughly 7 million a month before the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, shooting to a record high 12.3 million during the postpandemic recovery.

They fell as low as 6.5 million at the end of last year before partly recovering.

The hiring rate has shown a similar up-and-down pattern.

The labor market is unlikely to perk up, economists say, until the Iran conflict wanes, oil prices decline and companies gain more clarity on whether the Federal Reserve raises interest rates.

Key details: More jobs were available in transportation, warehousing, package delivery and even the federal government.

The number of new job postings in the federal government rose by 39,000 in June to mark the biggest increase this year.

Federal job postings have risen after declining in 2025 during a Trump administration effort to cull government jobs. Federal downsizing has waned since Elon Musk left his post last year as head of the Department of Government Efficiency.

Looking ahead: "The labor market is stuck in the low-hire, low-fire environment that's prevailed since last year," said economist Sneha Puri of the Indeed job-search site.

Big picture: Worries about a crumbling labor market at the end of last year have mostly gone away. Yet hiring is slow and people who are out of work are still struggling to find jobs.

Market reaction: The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA and the S&P 500 SPX rose again in Tuesday trades to fresh record highs.

-Jeffry Bartash