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30/07/24
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Job Openings in US Drop Slightly
In June, job openings in the U.S. dropped slightly and data for the previous month was revised upward, indicating the labor market is still slowing gradually and was not in danger of weakening rapidly.
However, consumers’ perceptions of the labor market are falling. On Tuesday, a survey from the Conference Board showed the portion of consumers who saw jobs as “hard to get” rose to the highest level in over three years.
The percentage of those believing that jobs were “not so plentiful” was also the highest since Mar. 2021. An increase in the unemployment rate during the last three months has fueled fears about the overall economic expansion and weakness in the labor market.
Oxford Economics’ U.S. lead economist, Nancy Vanden Houten, said although the labor market had cooled over the last few months, it wasn’t weak. That was, however, a scenario the Federal Reserve wanted to guard against, and she expected the Fed would start cutting rates in Sept.
In its JOLTS report, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said job openings, which is seen as a gauge of labor demand, had fallen by 46K to 8.184M by the last day of June.
May data was revised upward to show 8.23M unfilled positions rather than the 8.140M reported previously.
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