After months of a steady drumbeat of recession warnings, US workers are seeing glimmers of hope.
According to a LinkedIn survey of its members, workers’ confidence in their ability to get or hold a job ticked up to its highest level since late March. Sentiment has slumped since the beginning of the year as mass layoffs rippled across industries.
The slightly sunnier outlook comes as job cuts have slowed and analysts have lowered the odds of a recession.
“Our gut is that employers are taking stock of the state of the US economy and have paused further cuts until they see more evidence of where it is headed,” Guy Berger, LinkedIn’s principal economist, wrote on the platform to explain the rebound.
Read More: Global Layoffs Slow in Sign Cooling Economy Won’t Mean Recession
This boost in worker confidence coincides with a surge in the quits rate. More than 4 million US employees walked off the job in May, the most since the beginning of the year.
At the same time, inflation has cooled in recent months and wage gains have begun to outpace rising prices in the US, easing pressure on household budgets and sending consumer confidence soaring to an almost two-year high.
This uptick in sentiment may be the start of a new trend. As long as the US economy isn’t hit with any surprising bad news, Berger wrote in an email, “we could see workers gradually regaining confidence in finding and holding a job as we move through the rest of the year.”
