A prevailing narrative that serves as a backdrop for the 2016 presidential campaign is that Americans now live in an economy of perpetual job insecurity, in which they are easily and frequently laid off. Indeed, job satisfaction surveys conducted by the Conference Board confirm this sense of insecurity. In 1987, a solid majority of U.S. workers (59 percent) said they felt their jobs were secure; by 2014, less than half felt that way (47 percent).
Yet while people feel less secure now than in the past, employment data tell a different story. Job security has in fact steadily increased since the 1990s: The number of workers losing their jobs because their companies have downsized or closed has dropped steadily. Meanwhile, the number of new job postings, as a share of all jobs in the economy, has surged since the Great Recession.
