Job openings fall amid Fed efforts to cool labor market

Job openings fell in October amid the Federal Reserve’s efforts to cool a red-hot labor market, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, a closely watched gauge of slack in the labor force, showed there were 1[ads1]0.3 million job openings for the month. This is a decrease of 353,000 from September and down 760,000 compared to a year ago.

That left 1.7 vacancies per available worker for the month, down from a ratio of 2 to 1 just a few months ago.

The Fed has initiated a series of interest rate increases to bring down ongoing inflation. An area of ​​particular focus has been the ultra-tight labor market, with unemployment at 3.7% and wage growth helping to suppress price pressures.

While the monthly numbers may be volatile, the JOLTS report at least provided some measure that the Fed’s inflation-fighting efforts may be having an impact. The report came the same day payroll processing firm ADP reported job gains of just 127,000 in November, the lowest total since January 2021.

The closing level, a measure of workers’ confidence that they can easily move from one job to another, also fell, falling to 4.026 million, down 34,000 from a month ago and well below the record 4.5 million in November 2021 during what was called. “the great resignation”.

Total separations increased to 5.68 million, while layoffs and discharges also increased, up 58,000 to 1.39 million.

The Ministry of Labor will publish figures for wage growth for December on Friday. Economists expect job growth of 200,000 for the month, according to Dow Jones estimates.

Correction: ADP reported job gains of 127,000 in November, the lowest total since January 2021. An earlier version got the timing wrong. Economists expect job growth of 200,000 for December, according to Dow Jones estimates. An earlier version misinterpreted the figure.