Employers are hiring at exactly the same rate as they were in March, 3.6%. That’s down a touch from this time last year, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for April that was released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The layoffs and quits rates remained the same month over month too, and were also down a tick from last April. This steadiness comes after a couple years where employers ingested a large number of workers, and it could be a sign they’re returning to a more regular diet.  

In 2021 and 2022, employers were hungry for workers. So, they gobbled them up.  

“They were just stuffing themselves,” said Guy Berger, director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute. “It’s like a bunch of people around the table. They’re grabbing stuff off each other’s plates.”

Employers hired workers as if they’d never get another bite again. 

Now, the hiring rate has come down and is holding steady, and employers aren’t laying more people off.  Instead, they may be digesting workers now, so to speak — hanging on to their workforce and training them.

“Like, ‘I’m going to hold on to these people, grow them to their full potential,’” Berger said.

Also, it’s good to remember that employers usually aren’t as ravenous as they were earlier this decade. 

“Where we have been has been so ridiculously unprecedented that if things weren’t getting back to normal, I’d be like, ‘What is going on?'” said Ethan Struby, an economics professor at Carleton College.  

Struby said this JOLTS report is a sign the economy is coming back to merely a very good job market, as opposed to a once-in-a-lifetime one.  

And Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, said there are upsides to workers staying in one place longer. They might build up more firm- and industry-specific knowledge, she said.

There can be downsides too. Pollak pointed out that in countries where there’s very little turnover, the economies tend to be less dynamic.  

“What we want to avoid is a labor market that becomes sort of stodgy and stale, where no one who wants to move can,” she said.

That’s not a big problem in the U.S. yet, Pollak said. And she expects hiring to go up in the next few years because the American workforce is aging and many baby boomers are expected to retire.  

That means when employers want to start gobbling up workers again, they may find some earlier options are off the menu.