Americans have a new thing to worry about: A stuck job market with no quick fix

Employers are still hiring, but job growth is at one of its weakest paces in the past two decades.

The “low-hire, low-fire” dynamics persisted in November, with an unemployment rate driven higher partly by more people looking for work but not finding it. Long-term unemployment increased, discouraged workers were on the rise, and economic disparities deepened.

“Hiring, while certainly not on a freeze, is on hold; and people that have jobs are absolutely holding on to them with white knuckles,” Dan North, Allianz Trade’s senior economist for North America, told CNN this week. “I see that as definitely a labor market that’s stagnating.”

So where does it go from here? Some economists say this low-gear state can continue for quite some time. But others note that it’s only a matter of time before the labor market sees a major shift — and there are several ways that could happen.