The labor market is currently in a frozen state, characterized by low hiring and turnover — and economists said the war in Iran could exacerbate the problem.
“It will chill the labor market even more,” Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University, said last week during a Harvard Kennedy School webinar on the war’s economic consequences.
If you have a job right now, “don’t leave it,” because things will get harder, Bloom said.
The job market had already been on shaky footing before the U.S. and Israel started bombing Iran on Feb. 28, economists said.
Employers are hiring at their lowest rates since 2013, outside of the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is through January.
