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WASHINGTON (AP) — Laid off by the music streaming service Spotify last year, Joovay Arias figured he’d land another job as a software engineer fairly soon. His previous job search, in 2019, had been a breeze.

“Back then,” he said, “I had tons of recruiters reaching out to me — to the point where I had to turn them down.”

Arias did find another job recently, but only after an unexpected ordeal.

“I thought it was going to be something like three months,’’ said Arias, 39. “It turned into a year and three months.’’

As Arias and other jobseekers can attest, the American labor market, red-hot for the past few years, has cooled. The job market is now in an unusual place: Jobholders are mostly secure, with layoffs low, historically speaking. Yet the pace of hiring has slowed, and landing a job has become harder. On Friday, the government will report on whether hiring slowed sharply again in August after a much-weaker-than-expected July job gain.

“If you have a job and you’re happy with that job and you want to hold onto that job, things are pretty good right now,” said Nick Bunker, economic research director for North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab. “But if you’re out of work or you have a job and you want to switch to a new one, things aren’t as rosy as they were a couple of years ago.’’

Since peaking in March 2022 as the economy accelerated out of the pandemic recession, the number of listed job openings has dropped by more than a third, according to the government’s latest monthly report on openings and hiring.

Temporary-help firms have reduced jobs for 26 of the past 28 months. That’s a telling sign: Economists generally regard temp jobs as a harbinger for where the job market is headed because many employers hire temps before committing to full-time hires.

In a roundup this week of local economic conditions, the Federal Reserve’s regional banks reported signs of a decelerating job market. Staffing agencies have said that job gains have slowed “as firms are approaching hiring decisions with greater hesitancy,” the New York Fed found. “Job candidates are lingering on the market longer.”

The Minneapolis Fed said that a staffing agency reported that “businesses are getting a lot more picky” about whom they hire. And the Atlanta Fed found that “only a few” companies planned to step up hiring.

Job-hopping, so rampant two years ago, has slowed as workers have gradually lost confidence in their ability to find better pay or working conditions somewhere else. Just 3.3 million Americans quit their jobs in July, compared with a peak of 4.5 million in April 2022.

“People are staying put because they’re afraid they won’t find new jobs,’’ said Aaron Terrazas, chief economist at the employment website Glassdoor.

And the Labor Department has reported, in its annual revised estimates of employment growth, that the economy added 818,000 fewer jobs in the 12 months that ended in March than it had previously estimated.

In one respect, it’s not at all surprising that the pace of hiring is now moderating. Job growth in 2021 and 2022, as the economy roared back from the COVID-19 recession, was the most explosive on record. Workers gained leverage they hadn’t enjoyed in decades. Companies scrambled to hire fast enough to keep up with surging sales. Many employers had to jack up pay and offer bonuses to keep employees.

It was inevitable — and even healthy, economists say, in the long run — for hiring to slow, thereby easing pressure on wage growth and inflation pressures. Otherwise, the economy could have overheated and forced the Fed to tighten credit so aggressively as to cause a recession.

The post-pandemic jobs boom was a marked contrast to the sluggish recovery from the Great Recession of 2007-2009. Back then, it took more than six years for the economy to recover the jobs that had been lost. By contrast, the breathtaking pandemic job losses of 2020 — 22 million — were reversed in less than 2 1/2 years.

Still, the surging economy ignited inflation, leading the Fed to raise interest rates 11 times in 2022 and 2023 to try to cool the job market and slow inflation. And for a while, the economy and the job market appeared immune from higher borrowing costs. Consumers kept spending, businesses kept expanding and the economy kept growing.

But eventually the continued high rates began leaving their mark. Several high-profile companies, including tech giants like Spotify, announced layoffs last year in the face high interest rates. Outside of the economy’s technology sector, though, and, to a lesser extent, finance, most American companies haven’t cut jobs. The number of people filing first-time applications for unemployment benefits is barely above where it was before the pandemic struck.

Yet the same companies that are keeping workers aren’t necessarily adding more.

“Compared to a year or two ago, it’s a lot more difficult, particularly for entry-level folks,’’ Glassdoor’s Terrazas said. “Because of the gradual drip of layoffs in tech and finance, in professional services over the past year and a half, there have been a lot of high-skilled, experienced folks on the job market.

“By all evidence, they are finding jobs. But they are also pushing more entry-level folks further and further down the queue… Recent grads, folks without a lot of on-the-job experience are feeling the effects of suddenly competing with people who have two, five, 10 years’ experience in the jobs market. When those big fish are in the market, the little fish naturally get squeezed out.’’

Despite the pressure of the highest interest rates in decades, the economy remains in solid shape, having grown at a healthy 3% annual pace from April through June. Most Americans are enjoying solid job security.

Still, given the growing difficulty of changing jobs, even some of those job holders are feeling the chill.

“The reality is a lot of people, even when they have jobs, are feeling a lot of angst about the economy,’’ Terrazas said. “People are feeling a little bit job insecurity, a lot more pressure in the workplace than they have in a while.’’

In an August survey, the New York Fed found that Americans as a whole are more worried about losing their jobs now than at any time since 2014, when people were just beginning to feel the full effects of the recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-2009.

Adding to the anxiety is that memories of the recent job boom are still fresh.

“The reference point for most people is still 2021, 2022, when the job market was very strong, and what looks like for us economists as a normalization (of the job market from unsustainable levels), I think for a lot of people feels like a loss of status,’’ Terrazas said.

Consider Abby Neff, who, since graduating from Ohio University in May 2023, has struggled to find the “old-fashioned writing job’’ that she hoped to land in journalism

“It’s been pretty tough,” she said, “to find a permanent journalism job.”

In the meantime, Neff, 23, has joined the government’s AmeriCorps agency, which mobilizes Americans to perform community service, in southeastern Ohio. The job doesn’t pay much. But it has given her the opportunity to write and to learn about everything from forestry to sustainable agriculture to watershed management.

She hadn’t expected to encounter such difficulty in finding a job in her field.

“I feel like I did all the ‘right things’ in college,’’ Neff said ruefully.

She edited a campus magazine and made contacts in the business. She has landed some interviews, only to learn later that the job was filled without her having heard from the employer.

“I will get ‘ghosted,’ ‘’ she said. “I almost feel like I have to hunt employers down to even get a response to an application or submission.”

Arias, the software engineer, started looking for a job “the minute I got laid off’’ in June 2023. At first, he was casual about it. He took time off to care for his newborn daughter and drew money out of his severance package from Spotify. But when the job hunt proved difficult, he “decided to really ramp it up’’ early this year.

Arias started driving for a ride-sharing service and getting job leads from passengers. He reached out to a company through which he had taken part in a computer coding bootcamp, seeking contacts. Eventually, the networking paid off with a new job.

Yet the process proved much more frustrating than he had envisioned. Employers he had communicated with would vanish without explanation.

“That’s the worst part about the experience,’’ Arias said. “You get that introductory message. Then you send your resume. And then that’s it. Communication would end there. Or you’d get an automated response. So you don’t know what happened, what you did wrong … It just feels really demoralizing, really stressful, because you don’t know what happened.”

___

AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.

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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei has died at a Kenyan hospital where she was being treated after 80% of her body was burned in an attack by her partner. She was 33.

A spokesperson at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret city, Owen Menach, confirmed Cheptegei’s death on Thursday. Menach said the long-distance runner died early morning after all her organs failed. She had been fully sedated on admission at the hospital.

Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.

Trans Nzoia County Police Commander Jeremiah ole Kosiom said Monday that Cheptegei’s partner, Dickson Ndiema, bought a jerrican of petrol, poured it on her and set her ablaze during a disagreement Sunday. Ndiema was also burned, and was being treated at the same hospital.

Menach said Ndiema was still in the intensive care unit with 30% burns, but was “improving and stable.”

Cheptegei’s parents said their daughter bought land in Trans Nzoia to be near the county’s many athletic training centers. A report filed by the local chief states that the two were heard fighting over the land where her house was built before the attack.

The Uganda Athletics Federation eulogized Cheptegei on the social platform X, writing, “We are deeply saddened to announce the passing of our athlete, Rebecca Cheptegei early this morning who tragically fell victim to domestic violence. As a federation, we condemn such acts and call for justice. May her soul rest In Peace.”

Uganda Olympic Committee President Donald Rukare called the attack “a cowardly and senseless act that has led to the loss of a great athlete.”

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AIN TAYA, Algeria (AP) — In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women.

Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete.

Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who’s been practicing for a year, called Khelif an idol and role model.

“Since I’ve been boxing, my personality has changed: I’m more confident, less stressed,” she said, describing the sport as “therapy to fight shyness, to learn to defend myself, to gain self-confidence.”

In Ain Taya, the seaside town east of Algiers where Amina boxes, what local media have termed “Khelifmania” is on full display.

Behind a door wallpapered with a large photograph of the gold medalist, punching bags hang from the ceiling of the local gym, and young girls warm up near a boxing ring surrounded by shelves of masks, gloves and mouth guards.

The 23 young women and girls who train at the gym — an old converted church — all dream of becoming the next Khelif, their coach Malika Abassi said.

Abassi said the women imitate Khelif’s post-win celebrations, hopping around the boxing ring and saluting fans. She’s worried that the interest in boxing will grow so rapidly that her gym won’t be able to handle it.

“We’re getting calls from parents wanting to sign up their daughters,” she said. “I’m the only coach and our gym is small.”

Algerians from all walks of life flocked to squares in the country’s major cities to watch Khelif’s matches broadcast on projectors. Khelif’s story endeared her to the majority of the conservative country’s population, although a few prominent imams and Islamist politicians have criticized the example she sets by wearing her boxing uniform and not a headscarf.

Still, Amina Abassi, another amateur boxer at the same gym unrelated to her coach, said she believes the deep well of support for Khelif will overwhelm any criticism.

“I’m convinced that even conservative families will allow their daughters to take up boxing,” she said. “Imane has broken through the wall of false modesty and hypocrisy.”

Noureddine Bouteldja, a former amateur boxer and sports journalist, said Khelif has transcended boxing and become a “social phenomenon” throughout Algeria thanks to her personal story and the scrutiny she faced from famous people around the world who — unlike Algerians — saw her advancing in the Olympics as part of the culture war over sex, gender and sport.

Algerians rallied behind Khelif in the face of criticism from Donald Trump, Elon Musk, J.K. Rowling and others who falsely claimed she was transgender. They largely interpreted attacks on her as attacks on their nation itself. And unlike much of the international community that coalesced behind Khelif, on social media most couldn’t register the thought of a transgender athlete from Algeria.

“It’s the victory of a woman who has shown extraordinary resilience and phenomenal strength of character in the face of the campaign to denigrate her gender,” Bouteldja said.

Boxing coaches and administrators said Khelif’s rise from a poor child in rural central Algeria to worldwide fame has made her an inspirational figure. Mourad Meziane, head of the Algerian Boxing League, expects a huge spike in registration among young women at the start of this school year in mid September.

Algeria currently has 30 regional boxing leagues and 10,000 athletes participating nationwide, he said.

“The impact is inevitable and will only be very positive for women’s boxing in Algeria,” Meziane said.

Civil society figures and activists said the impact is also sure to reverberate far beyond the boxing ring.

Attorney Aouicha Bakhti said Khelif’s story will have a lasting impact on Algerian culture and be a counterweight to strands of society that discourage women’s participation in sports.

“This kind of epic helps society, ours in this case, which is in the process of retreating in the face of fundamentalist ideals,” said Bakhti, a prominent feminist and political activist.

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WINDER, Ga. (AP) — More than a year ago, tips about online posts threatening a school shooting led Georgia police to interview a 13-year-old boy, but investigators didn’t have enough evidence for an arrest. On Wednesday, that boy opened fire at his high school outside Atlanta and killed four people and wounded nine, officials said.

The teen has been charged as an adult in the deaths of Apalachee High School students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14, and instructors Richard Aspinwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53, Georgia Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Hosey said at a news conference.

At least nine other people — eight students and one teacher at the school in Winder, about an hour’s drive northeast of Atlanta — were taken to hospitals with injuries. All were expected to survive, Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said.

The teen, now 14, was to be taken to a regional youth detention facility on Thursday.

Armed with an assault-style rifle, the teen turned the gun on students in a hallway at the school when classmates refused to open the door for him to return to his algebra classroom, classmate Lyela Sayarath said.

The teen earlier left the second period algebra classroom, and Sayarath figured the quiet student who recently transferred was skipping school again.

But he returned later and wanted back in the classroom. Some students went to open the locked door but instead backed away.

“I’m guessing they saw something, but for some reason they didn’t open the door,” Sayarath said.

When she looked at him through a widow in the door, she saw the student turn and heard a barrage of gunshots.

“It was about 10 or 15 of them at once, back-to-back,” she said.

The math students ducked onto the floor and sporadically crawled around, looking for a safe corner to hide.

Two school resource officers encountered the shooter within minutes after a report of shots fired went out, Hosey said. The teen immediately surrendered and was taken into custody.

The teen had been interviewed after the FBI received anonymous tips in May 2023 about online threats to commit an unspecified school shooting, the agency said in a statement.

The FBI narrowed the threats down and referred to the case to the sheriff’s department in Jackson County, which is adjacent to Barrow County.

The sheriff’s office interviewed the then-13-year-old and his father, who said there were hunting guns in the house but the teen did not have unsupervised access to them. The teen also denied making any online threats.

The sheriff’s office alerted local schools for continued monitoring of the teen, but there was no probable cause for arrest or additional action, the FBI said.

Hosey said the state Division of Family and Children’s Services also had previous contact with the teen and will investigate whether that has any connection with the shooting. Local news outlets reported that law enforcement on Wednesday searched the teen’s family home in Bethlehem, Georgia, east of the high school.

“All the students that had to watch their teachers and their fellow classmates die, the ones that had to walk out of the school limping, that looked traumatized,” Sayarath said, “that’s the consequence of the action of not taking control.”

Authorities were still looking into how the teen obtained the gun used in the shooting and got it into the school with about 1,900 students in Barrow County, a rapidly suburbanizing area on the edge of metro Atlanta’s ever-expanding sprawl.

It was the the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas. The classroom killings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to active shooter drills in classrooms. But they have done little to move the needle on national gun laws.

Before Wednesday, there had been 29 mass killings in the U.S. so far this year, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. At least 127 people have died in those killings, which are defined as incidents in which four or more people die within a 24-hour period, not including the killer — the same definition used by the FBI.

On Wednesday evening, hundreds gathered in Jug Tavern Park in downtown Winder for a vigil. Volunteers handed out candles and also water, pizza and tissues. Some knelt as a Methodist minister led the crowd in prayer after a Barrow County commissioner read a Jewish prayer of mourning.

Christopher Vasquez, 15, said he attended the vigil because he needed to feel grounded and be in a safe place.

He was in band practice when the lockdown order was issued. He said it felt like a regular drill as students lined up to hide in the band closet.

“Once we heard banging at the door and the SWAT (team) came to take us out, that’s when I knew that it was serious,” he said. “I just started shaking and crying.”

He finally settled down once he was at the football stadium. “I just was praying that everyone I love was safe,” he said.

___

Associated Press journalists Sharon Johnson, Mike Stewart and Erik Verduzco in Winder; Beatrice Dupuy in New York; Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia; Charlotte Kramon, Kate Brumback and Jeff Martin in Atlanta; and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed.

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Palestinian health officials say Israeli strikes in the occupied West Bank killed five people, including the son of a prominent jailed militant.

Israel has been carrying out large-scale raids in the territory over the past week that it says are aimed at dismantling militant groups and preventing attacks. The Palestinians fear a widening of the war in Gaza.

The strikes overnight in the northern West Bank town of Tubas killed five people, including Mohammed Zubeidi, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Thursday.

His father, Zakaria Zubeidi, was a well-known militant commander during the second Palestinian uprising in the early 2000s and took part in a rare jail break in 2021 before being arrested and returned to prison days later.

The Israeli military said it conducted three airstrikes in Tubas on militants who threatened its soldiers.

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