U.S. job openings plunged in July to their lowest level since January 2021, suggesting that the labor market is slowing down and may trigger the Federal Reserve to issue a large rate cut later this month.
July’s job openings, considered a key measure of labor demand, fell by 237,000 to 7.673 million for the month, according to the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey issued on Sept. 4.
At the same time, the BLS data for June was revised lower to show 7.91 million unfilled positions instead of the previously reported 8.184 million.
Economists who had been polled by Reuters and Dow Jones had forecast about 8.1 million job openings for July.
Layoffs also rose to 1.76 million, the most since March 2023, according to the report. The number of workers who quit their jobs also rose by a small amount to about 3.3 million.
Total hiring rose in July to 5.5 million after dropping to a four-year low of 5.2 million in the previous month, according to the Sept. 4 report.
A report released last month showed that the U.S. economy added about 114,000 jobs in July, a slowdown from prior months. The unemployment rate also rose to 4.3 percent, according to the Labor Department.
The Sept. 4 figures indicate that fewer companies are seeking to add workers despite recent data showing that consumer spending is still growing. Last week, the government estimated that the economy expanded at a healthy 3 percent annual rate in the April–June quarter.
Even as openings have fallen for the past two years, there are still roughly 1.1 job openings for every unemployed person, according to the Sept. 4 report. That reflects the economy’s continuing need for workers and marks a reversal from before the COVID-19 pandemic, when there were more unemployed people than available jobs.
In a speech during the Federal Reserve’s annual economic meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said that hiring has “cooled considerably“ and that the Fed does not want ”further cooling” in the job market. Economists told The Epoch Times last month that the Fed might accelerate its rate cuts during the Federal Open Market Committee meeting on Sept. 17 and 18.
The jobs report did not appear to have an immediate impact on the Dow Jones or Nasdaq, coming after both stock indexes had plunged by more than 1 percent each on Sept. 3. As of morning trading on Sept. 4, the Dow Jones was up by about 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq had increased by 0.26 percent.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
