Hiring slowed from earlier this year with U.S. employers adding 199,000 jobs in November while the unemployment rate fell to 3.7%. …

More recently, job openings are falling, and workers are quitting their jobs less. Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, has cut starting pay for some new hires. The music-streaming company Spotify said earlier this week that it is preparing to lay off 17% of its workforce.

The slowdown isn’t yet raising widespread alarm bells, however, because the labor market has remained on a solid footing. The unemployment rate and layoffs, while edging higher in recent months, remain historically low.

[Is this the “soft landing” that the White House wants? So far it seems like this is what the Fed wanted to see. Wages have finally begun to keep pace with the present level of inflation, although whether that remains true is tough to predict. The BLS report shows a big spike in the Household data on the active workforce (+532K), but that survey is known for volatile shifts. It also shows 747,000 more ’employed’ than last month, which doesn’t line up with the Establishment data showing only 199,000 new jobs created. The best that can be said is that we seem to have caught up to proper job levels from the pandemic, so we should see more predictable outcomes in hiring from here on out. — Ed]