Lagging economic conditions have made employers more hesitant to hire.

Job openings in Massachusetts have decreased since the start of the year, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This mirrors months of dismal job growth nationally.

Job recruiters have a front-row seat to these labor dynamics. They help companies find talent, and job seekers find work. Some recruiters say navigating the job market is significantly different now compared to prior years.

“Our lives are pretty boring,” said David Leshowitz, senior vice president of Management Recruiters – The Boston Group.

He has been in the recruiting business for 25 years and loves what he does. He and his team specialize in legal services, real estate and construction. He spends a lot of his day making calls to employers to check in on open positions they may have.

Leshowitz said his calls these days are not like they were a year ago, when employers would furiously reach out to him. Leshowitz said the dearth of incoming calls are a sign of the job market he’s dealing with.

“How we know we’re in the softening market is we get yelled at less and less and less and less and less by clients,” Leshowitz said with a laugh. “Because we’re like, ‘huh, OK. Well, there’s not as many people yelling at us, there can’t be as many jobs out there.'”

When there are lots of jobs open, Leshowitz said he fields more calls from anxious employers who pay him thousands of dollars to find candidates. So they expect — even demand — immediate results.

“There used to be five, six, seven opportunities for every candidate that we would recruit,” Leshowitz said.  “Maybe now there’s only one opportunity.”

David Leshowitz, back right, and his staff in the office of Management Recruiters – The Boston Group near North Station. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Employers should lock down strong candidates and job seekers should pounce on their first good offer, Leshowitz advised.

Leshowitz said he’s lucky there’s some activity in the sectors he recruits for. But other sectors aren’t hiring as much.

“ Scientific research is being hit hard,” said Patrick Cahill, the founder and president of #twiceasnice Recruiting, a national firm based in Boston. “That’s across the nation and just Massachusetts is really feeling that particularly hard because of the center that Boston is on scientific research.”

The state’s biopharma industry has already lost research and development jobs and that decline is expected to continue, according to a MassBio report released in August. A University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute report in July also found the state could lose thousand of jobs due to proposed federal cuts to research and development.

Cahill has seen things slow down across a variety of industries he recruits for, such as manufacturing, agriculture and social services.

“ It’s not as good to be a recruiter today as it was twelve months ago,” Cahill said. “It feels like the recruiting industry has just kind of had this gentle coast downward.”

Companies are holding off on hiring decisions because of the economic uncertainty caused by interest rates and President Trump’s tariff policies, according to Cahill.

“Everyone’s just waiting for the sign that they can go do what they want to be doing,” he said. “Maybe as soon as there’s a little bit longer term certainty about what is going to occur, companies will start making hiring decisions and start planning for the future.”

But cautious companies means cautious workers. Nearly three-quarters of workers plan to stay put in their current job through the end of the year, according to research from the global staffing firm Robert Half. And Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows the number of people quitting their job in Massachusetts has dipped and leveled off since the pandemic, when there was high turnover in the labor market.

“Workers are carefully weighing the pros and cons of a job move right now,” said Corey Adams, the regional president of Robert Half in Boston. “And many recognize that companies have been more measured and that the hiring process has slowed.”

This puts more pressure on people who do venture out into the job market, according to Adams. Employers are placing more emphasis on specialized skills, he said. Adams has seen the biggest demand for data analytics, cybersecurity and especially, artificial intelligence.

“ For those job seekers or future job seekers, certifications in some of the most in demand areas can really improve your job prospects,” Adams said.

Employers value certifications from accredited programs that align with industry standards, according to Adams. Those programs can be online or through a community college or university, he added.

This can open doors for job seekers, Adams said, because specialized skills will primarily drive hiring in today’s slow job market.