Job openings fell slightly in June compared to the previous month amid signs of a cooling in the labor market.
New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics The report released Tuesday showed there were 8.18 million job openings at the end of June, down from 8.23 million in May. The May figure was revised up from the 8.14 million job openings initially reported. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected the report to show 8 million job openings in June.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) also showed that 5.3 million hires were made during the month, down slightly from May’s revised figure of 5.7 million. The hiring rate slowed to 3.4% from 3.6% in May.
Also in Tuesday’s report, the quit rate, a sign of confidence among workers, stood at 2.1% for the second straight month. In June, there were 3.28 million quits, compared with 3.4 million in May and 1.8 million in June. the lowest number of resignations in a month since November 2020.
The data comes at a time when the labor market has been under scrutiny in recent weeks. Rising weekly jobless claims and a steady uptick in the unemployment rate have economists worried that cracks are forming beneath what has otherwise been considered a strong labor market. Following the release of Tuesday’s data, former U.S. Labor Secretary Seth Harris told Yahoo Finance that the recent decline in quits indicates that workers are “feeling a little less confident that if they leave their jobs, they’ll be able to find another one.”
This is one of the first signs of “turbulence” in the labor market data, according to Harris, and one of the reasons she thinks the Federal Reserve should cut interest rates when it announces its next policy decision on Wednesday.
Harris is not alone in that view, as several economists have signaled in recent months that the central bank should begin cutting interest rates before signs of a cooling labor market intensify.
But that is not expected to be the outcome of the central bank’s meeting, which began on Tuesday. Markets currently price in just a 4% chance that the Fed will cut rates on Wednesday, and many believe Fed Chair Jerome Powell will use his press conference to set up an interest rate cut in September.
The JOLTS report is the first in a series of key labor market data to be released this week. On Friday, the July jobs report is expected to show that 175,000 nonfarm jobs were added to the U.S. economy, and unemployment held steady at 4.1%, according to Bloomberg data.
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