ZipRecruiter, don't ignore what Ian Siegel had to say about the labor market/Revised and includes the charts

For always an important tell on the US labor market, and one of my go to sources, ZipRecruiter reported earnings last night and this is what was said on the earnings call from CEO Ian Siegel:

"Employers continue to respond to the enduring macroeconomic uncertainty with caution. The number of job openings and employers' willingness to pay for those job openings has been declining significantly from the peaks of 2021 and 2022. This trend is consistent among both SMB and enterprise customers alike, across multiple industries and geographies. We see this as a macroeconomically driven reality impacting companies across the recruiting space. This results in the continuation of an atypical hiring pattern." 

Their y/o/y revenue decline of 29% "is primarily reflective of a continued and accelerating softening in the hiring market. Quarterly paid employers were 102,000 representing a 35% decrease vs Q2 '22 and a 4% decrease vs Q1 '23. This is primarily reflective of weakness among small and medium sized businesses which make up the vast majority of our paid employers." 

Of particular importance, "The speed of this deceleration is particularly noteworthy with July's revenue being down approximately 31% y/o/y" and "it really accelerated towards the back end of July." 

And, ZIP is making it clear that this slowdown in hiring is not just a ZIP thing and not something specific to them. "So, it seems very clear to us that this trend that we're observing is something that is an external force as opposed to an internal problem."