WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Thirty-eight percent of Americans say it is a "good time" to find a quality job, down three percentage points since June and the lowest since December 2014. Still, this is higher than any figure Gallup tracked between 2008 and 2014.

In the nearly 14 years that Gallup has asked this question each month, the percentage of Americans saying it is a "good time" to find a quality job has never reached a majority. The current rating is about where it was when Gallup first polled on the question in August 2001.

The figure peaked at 48% in January 2007, after which it steadily dropped and bottomed out at 8% in November 2009. Optimism about the job market did not change much in the following years, once again hitting the low of 8% in November 2011. Since then, however, it has gradually improved, reaching a recent peak of 45% in January of this year.

As Gallup has found in the past, Americans' perceptions of the job market are somewhat contingent on their political identification and whether that aligns with the party of the president. Those who identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party (46%) are much more upbeat in their ratings of the current job market than those who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party (29%).

Men are more upbeat than women about the job market, and employed adults more than those who are not employed. And while adults younger than 30 have a mostly positive view of the job market, this weakens by age group, with those aged 65 and older being the least positive.

Bottom Line

Despite perceptions of a healthier flow of jobs from their own employers and a dropping unemployment rate, these signs might not be enough for Americans to maintain a positive outlook on the U.S. job market. Still, the current outlook is more positive than it has been for most of the past several years. But the majority of Americans have not said it was a good time to find a quality job since Gallup began tracking it in 2001. That may partly reflect a poor job market during much of this time, but it may also reflect Americans' general tendency not to be overly positive about the job market.

Survey Methods

Results for this Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted July 8-12, 2015, on the Gallup U.S. Daily survey, with a random sample of 1,009 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.

Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 50% cellphone respondents and 50% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.

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