US job vacancies fell last month to their lowest level since January 2021, a sign labor market Losing some momentum. Still, posted vacancies remain well above pre-pandemic levels.
The Labor Department reported Tuesday that the number of job openings declined in September to 7.4 million from 7.9 million in August.
Economists expected the level of openings to remain virtually unchanged. Job opportunities were reduced, particularly in health care companies and government agencies at the federal, state, and local levels.
The number of layoffs also increased. And the number of Americans leaving their jobs fell to 3.1 million, the lowest since August 2020.
“Workers are not as confident that they will be able to find a job if they leave without another job,” Carl Weinberg and Rubella Faruqi of High Frequency Economics wrote in a commentary.
Still, he said, “There is no sign of a sudden collapse of the labor market or any imminent recession. The labor market is certainly soft, but it’s not exploding.”
Although job openings have fallen sharply since reaching a peak of 12.2 million in 2022, they remain higher than before the coronavirus pandemic paralyzed the U.S. economy in early 2020.
As the economy bounced back from the COVID-19 recession with unexpected strength, companies struggled to find enough workers to fulfill customer orders.
The booming economy led to a burst of inflation and the Federal Reserve responded by raising its benchmark interest rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023.
inflation has gone down From a peak of 9.1% to 2.4% in June 2022.
The economy proved surprisingly resilient in the face of Fed hikes, avoiding a widely predicted recession.
However, compared to the increase in hiring from 2021 to 2023, job creation has slowed this year – averaging 200,000 new jobs per month from January to September this year.
That’s healthy, though, down from the record average of 604,000 jobs per month in 2021 at the end of pandemic lockdowns, 377,000 in 2022 and 251,000 last year.
Still, employers added an unexpectedly strong amount 254,000 jobs in September,
On Friday, the Labor Department is expected to report that the economy added 120,000 jobs in October, a total that will be hampered by the impact of Hurricanes Helen and Milton and a strike at Boeing.
The unemployment rate is expected to remain at a low 4.1%, according to a survey of forecasters by data firm FactSet.
