Last month’s weak job creation numbers look even worse in an analysis that shows hiring has been largely confined to health care, construction, and hospitality — and they’re slowing down.

BY BRUCE CRUMLEY @BRUCEC_INC

Jobseekers wait in line to enter a Chicago career fair in August 2025.

Government data released last week showed a mere 22,000 jobs were created in August, leading many observers to warn the hiring slowdown likely reflected slowing economic growth. That dim view may actually seem positive when compared with a newly published analysis from the hiring platform Indeed, which said the “anemic” employment activity for the first eight months of 2025 was the weakest in a decade and a half.

“The U.S. labor market isn’t just slowing — it is now dangerously close to stalling,” wrote Laura Ullrich, director of North American economic research for Indeed’s Hiring Lab, in a post placing August’s data into broader perspective. “This anemic pace of job creation is not enough to keep unemployment from rising — a disturbing development in an environment where job openings, in addition to hiring, remain weak.”

That concern was not based only on last week’s Department of Labor data showing employers hired just 22,000 people in August —........

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