WASHINGTON — American employers posted fewer job openings in June because the financial system contends with raging inflation and rising rates of interest.
Job openings fell to a still-high 10.7 million in June from 11.3 million in May, the Labor Department stated Tuesday. Job openings, which by no means exceeded 8 million in a month earlier than final yr, had topped 11 million each month from December by means of May earlier than dipping in June.
In its month-to-month Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, the Labor Department stated that the variety of Americans quitting their jobs fell barely however remained excessive at 4.2 million in June whereas layoffs fell to 1.3 million from 1.4 million in May.
The job market has been resilient to date this yr, and corporations have complained that it’s exhausting to fill open positions: Employers have added a median of 457,000 a jobs a month in 2022; and unemployment is close to a 50-year low.
That is one cause many economists imagine the financial system is just not but in an recession though gross home product, the broadest measure of financial output, has contracted for 2 quarters in a row — one rule of thumb for the onset of a downturn.
“If the economy is rolling over, the labor market had apparently not gotten the memo yet as of the end of June,” stated Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities. “A case could be made for slight moderation from an egregiously overheated state, but that is about as far as I would go in assessing labor market conditions.”
The Labor Department’s jobs report for July, out Friday, is predicted to point out that employers tacked on one other 250,000 jobs final month, which might be a wholesome quantity in regular instances however can be the bottom since December 2020, when the worldwide financial system was being ravaged by the pandemic. Economists additionally count on that unemployment stayed at 3.6% for the fifth straight month, in line with a survey by the info agency FactSet.
The financial system is below strain because the Federal Reserves raises rates of interest to fight inflation that’s working on the quickest tempo in 4 many years.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”