Job Market Freeze

Investopedia Editor-in-Chief Caleb Silver talks about how layoff announcements were up and job openings down this winter as the job market's hiring freeze deepened, according to two barometers of the job market Thursday. The indicators were unmistakable signs that the job market is being dragged down by President Trump's tariffs, the immigration crackdown, and to a lesser extent, the rise of AI software. Sharp drops hit Wall Street on Thursday as technology stocks fell, and bitcoin plunged again to roughly half its record price set last fall. And while Amazon sales surged 14% during the fourth quarter, helped by strong holiday spending and a better-than-expected growth in its prominent cloud computing unit, the company's shares fell nearly 10% in after-hours trading as its profits fell slightly below analysts’ expectations.