“There are several reasons for cautious optimism that the same trends that helped cushion the job market in 2023 will hold in 2024,” Indeed Chief Economist Svenja Gudall wrote in Fast Company, as she laid out three labor market trends that she believes workers should look out for in the year ahead. 

The first is “lower postings, limited layoffs, less quitting.” While U.S. job postings at the end of November were roughly 25 percent more numerous than they were before the pandemic, they declined by 16 percent from the year before, likely due to employers having been able to fill many positions.  

As the U.S. layoff rate hits a record low, and the quit rate returns to pre-pandemic levels, many employers are reluctant to let go of their current employees, and those employees are more reluctant to leave their current jobs. “Less quitting means employers may need to fill open roles from the ranks of the unemployed rather than the already employed,” she wrote. “In 2024, this could be good news for employers that may no longer need to offer big pay raises to lure candidates away from competitors, helping to further cool wage growth—a key ingredient in taming inflation.” 

The second trend that Gudall named is “doing more with less.” An aging population means that the pool of available workers will shrink in the future, even as demand for workers remains high, and the prime-age labor force participation rate has risen to high levels over the past several years, she observed. 

“But there are only so many workers that can be pulled from the sidelines or enticed to move far from home to fill necessary jobs,” she wrote. “Going forward, the labor market will need to do more with less, boosting productivity even as the labor force shrinks.”   

The third trend she cited is “cautious optimism around issues like AI and inflation.” She wrote that tools such as ChatGPT “are more likely to augment most jobs rather than fully replace them. They have the potential to take on repetitive and mundane tasks and free humans to focus on more productive work. The technology also promises to create entirely new jobs.” 

Gudall noted that the high demand from employers did not trigger higher inflation, that slower wage growth did not lead to higher unemployment, and that workers are re-entering the workforce. But she warned that, “conditions are weakening, and it’s possible we are entering a period in which the easiest hurdles on the road to a fabled soft landing have already been cleared, leaving only the highest and most difficult for the last mile of the race.” 

“There’s a decent case for optimism for 2024,” she wrote in conclusion, “but nothing is guaranteed.”