On January 28, 2022, a sign reading ‘Hire Now’ is posted in the window of an ice cream parlor in Los Angeles, California.
Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images
Job vacancies in March exceeded the level of the available labor force by 5.6 million, while a record number of people quit their jobs, the Labor Department reported on Tuesday.
Job openings reached 11.55 million for the month, also a new record for data going back to December 2000, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. That was 205,000 more than February and representative of a job market that is still historically tight.
At the same time, terminations totaled 4.54 million, up 152,000 from the previous month, as the so-called Great Retreat continued. The pandemic era has opened up opportunities for workers who feel confident enough to abandon their current situation for better employment elsewhere.
The report contributes to an inflation picture that is expected to prompt the Federal Reserve to undertake a series of aggressive rate hikes, beginning with a half-percentage-point move on Wednesday.
A labor shortage during the pandemic has pushed up wages, with average hourly earnings up 5.6% year-on-year in March. However, this has not kept pace with inflation, which was 8.5% over the same period.
Supply failed to keep up with demand in March, with the number of new hires actually falling slightly to 6.74 million despite the increase in vacancies. The total number of breakups rose to 6.32 million, up nearly 4% from February.
Job vacancies in core labor and hospitality fell by 45,000, down 2.6% on a monthly basis, while new hires rose by 40,000. The sector is seen as a key indicator of economic recovery and has an unemployment rate of 5.9%, still slightly above pre-pandemic levels.
Tuesday’s release comes in the same week as April’s key nonfarm payrolls report. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect jobs to rise by 400,000 and the unemployment rate to fall to 3.5%, which would be the lowest rate since December 1969, before the pandemic.