You’ve seen the headlines. The U.S. labor market isn’t as optimistic as we would like to believe. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ revised data points to a significant reduction in the number of jobs available from last year to March 2025. The economy is almost a million jobs weaker than we thought.
And to add to this, August’s Jobs Report points to an increasingly weakening job market, with the unemployment rate at 4.3%–the highest level since 2021–and just 22,000 jobs added to the market in August, in sharp contrast to economists’ expectations of more than 70,000 job gains in the U.S, reports CNN.
The primary industries being hit with employment reductions and fewer jobs being added to the market, are:
- Federal (down by 15,000 in August and a total loss of 97,000 in January; this total figure does not account for federal workers currently in receipt of severance pay)
- Mining, quarrying, oil, and gas extraction (down by 6,000 after hardly any change over the past year)
- Wholesale trade (down by 32,000 since May)
- Manufacturing (down by 78,000 for the year)
(Data taken from the BLS employment situation summary.)
Can the U.S. job market get any worse?
What’s Causing A Weakened U.S. Jobs Market?
There are several factors that are likely responsible for the current state of the labor market in the United States. These factors include the federal employment upheaval under the current administration, beginning in January when federal workers were prohibited to work remotely, resulting in a wave of employees leaving their jobs as expected in a bid from DODGE to shrink the federal workforce, and consequently government spend.
Another likely reason is the shutdown and reduction of workforces in various federal departments, again linked to DODGE.
Third, this year we’ve seen the tariff war impacting industries, especially manufacturing and wholesale trade, within the United States.
AI is another significant factor here, resulting in fewer jobs being added to the labor market as a whole. One million less jobs than predicted aligns perfectly with the layoffs trend we’ve been seeing over the past few years, specifically since the AI boom.
This year, in February, we saw an unprecedented surge in tech layoffs not seen since the pandemic, and since then tech layoffs have exceeded the rate of layoffs since the pandemic. Big name companies like Microsoft, Intel, Glassdoor, Indeed, and others have been laying off workers by the hundreds and thousands.
Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO, said that AI is already achieving 50% of the work at the CRM company, and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy anticipates a future where AI will be more significantly integrated across the company’s operations and there will be fewer Amazon employees within the next few years.
All these factors explain why the U.S. labor market is much weaker than originally forecasted.
How Can I Future-Proof And AI-Proof My Career?
With a weak U.S. jobs market, it’s only natural that professionals like you are filled with anxiety. This is giving rise to the trend of job-hugging, which is the opposite of job-hopping that occurred during the Great Resignation of 2022.
“Job-hugging” is when you hold on to your job and are very reluctant to hand in your notice for fear that you may never step into regular employment again. You don’t like your job, you probably hate it, and you don’t give it 100%, but you’re staying in it just to survive.
Is that what you really want for your future?
Is this how you expect to live the rest of your career, at the mercy of inflation, tariffs, rising record levels of unemployment, fewer jobs being available, and fierce job market competition?
Is that how you intend to spend the next 10, 15, 20 or 25 years of your career?
Surely, there must be more to work than job-hugging or being at the mercy of the economy.
The good news is you don’t have to be. Here are some simple steps you can take today to regain control over your life, your finances and your career, and design a job and career that makes you fulfilled, happy, and financially free.
1. Upskill In High-Income, In-Demand Skills
Upskill in the skills of the future, by learning the certifications that teach in-demand high-income skills, like AI, critical thinking, data analysis, project management, etc.
2. Career Pivot
Make a career pivot and shift to industries or roles that are recession-proof and pay well, such as cybersecurity, for example.
3. Build Your Online Prescence
Establish your digital presence and build your online personal brand.
4. Freelance On Gig Platforms
Offer your skills on freelance platforms, such as Toptal, Upwork, or Contra, so that you have a secondary stream of income to fall back on. And you can build an entire business from this, if it takes off and is going very well.
5. Build Passive Income
Create a portfolio career where you have several income streams, including passive income.
6. Seek Companies With A Global Presence
Look for remote jobs that are work-from-anywhere. Seek companies based in Europe, Asia, or other parts of the world, that have flexible hiring policies, and allow for async working from anywhere in the world.
7. Optimize And Post On Your LinkedIn
Strengthen your LinkedIn presence by optimising your profile, strategically adding to your network, and engaging thoughtfully on posts on LinkedIn, providing quality insight and thought leadership. Post regularly on LinkedIn, at least two to three times a week.
8. Update Your Resume
Refresh your resume at least once a year, so you never forget what you’ve achieved and accomplished, and your resume is always fresh and prepared in the event that you need it sooner than expected.
9. Keep A Financial Cushion
Build a financial cushion of emergency savings and money for business investment. So you can launch a side hustle.
10. Try Consulting
Leverage your brain capital for consulting and contract retainer work.
11. Stay Relevant
Stay abreast of trends in your industry and in the job market, using podcasts, newsletters, industry publications, and attending industry networking events and masterminds.
12. Network Proactively
Join membership associations within your industry for networking and job opportunities.
13. Prepare For The Right Jobs
Focus on roles that require strategy, leadership, and decision-making, as opposed to entry-level or repetitive skills that AI can easily replicate.
What’s next for you now?
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Time to dust off your resume and optimize it for the jobs and skills of the future. Learn how to Write A Resume That Gets You Hired After A Layoff, then after reading that article, learn what you can do in the first month after being laid off here. Then, check out some free certifications you can undertake to upskill yourself at no cost in this article.