The Commerce Department reported that U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) shrank at a 0.3% annual rate, down from growth of 2.4% in the final three months of 2024. The GDP report was the worst quarterly performance for the U.S. economy since early 2022. The report comes after the Labor Department on Tuesday reported that U.S. employers posted 7.2 million job openings in March 2025, down from the 8.1 million job openings reported in March 2024. The report represented the fewest job openings since September 2024 and was below the 7.5 million that economists had forecast. Separately on Tuesday, the Conference Board reported that Americans’ confidence in the U.S. economy slumped for a fifth straight month to 86, a 7.9 point drop from March to April and the lowest reading since May 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
