Good News...Fewer People are being laid off...Bad News...Hardly anyone is hiring

Americans who have a job may take comfort in knowing that companies are laying off fewer people than at any time since before the Great Recession. 

The government said Thursday that weekly applications for U.S. unemployment benefits have averaged 335,500 over the past month. That's the lowest level since November 2007, which was one month before the recession began. 

But while most companies have stopped cutting jobs, many remain reluctant to hire. That's bad news for the roughly 11.5 million Americans who are unemployed and a major reason the unemployment rate is still so high four years after the recession officially ended.

"We have seen a disconnect between the level of hiring and firing," said Bricklin Dwyer, an economist at BNP Paribas. 

[...] 

Hiring hasn't bounced back as fast. Employers hired an average 4.3 million people a month this year through June, well below the 2006 monthly average of 5.3 million.

Despite the drop in unemployment applications, net job growth slowed in July. Employers created just 162,000 net jobs, the fewest in four months. 

The unemployment rate dropped to a 4 1/2-year low of 7.4 percent last month, down from 7.6 percent in June. That is still well above the 5 percent to 6 percent associated with a normal economy. 

So what will it take for more companies to begin adding new workers to their payrolls?

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