A “Help Wanted” sign is posted at a JCPenney store at The Shops at Tanforan on September 1, 2023 in San Bruno, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
The number of job openings at U.S. companies rose unexpectedly in August, a sign that the labor market remains tight and resilient despite the Federal Reserve’s efforts to slow the economy.
Overall, there were 9.61 million job vacancies this month, an increase of nearly 700,000 from July and well above the Dow Jones estimate of 8.8 million, the Labor Department said Tuesday in its monthly survey of job vacancies and labor turnover with.
However, hiring increased only slightly, rising to 5.857 million, an increase of just 35,000.
A large portion of the increase in job vacancies was in professional and business services, which saw an increase of 509,000.
Stock prices fell after the report as a tighter labor market could increase pressure on the Fed to keep interest rates elevated. The Dow Jones Industrial Average recently lost more than 260 points during the session.
The Fed is watching the JOLTS report closely, looking for signs of a labor slowdown.
The number of job vacancies has been declining in recent months, suggesting that the central bank’s interest rate hikes are beginning to impact a labor market that has been hit by a large mismatch between supply and demand, with the number of job vacancies outpacing the number of available labor by 2% exceeded 1. The ratio has now fallen to 1.5 to 1, following an increase in workers classified as unemployed in August.
The August JOLTS report comes just days before the department’s September nonfarm payroll count. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect Friday’s report to show an increase of 170,000.
The number of layoffs, a measure of a worker’s confidence in finding a new job after leaving a previous position, has changed little. This was also the case with total separations and layoffs.