The labor market was showing few signs of acceleration and few signs of deterioration in August, according to the Labor Department’s monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, known as Jolts.
The only change of note in the report came from a drop in number of job openings, which fell to 5.4 million at the end of August from 5.8 million a month earlier.
The drop can be largely attributed to a decline in openings for professional and business services, which saw the number of available jobs fall by 223,000 to 989,000. If the number of openings continued to decline, it would be a worrisome trend, but in recent years openings have hovered near record levels. This is especially the case for professional and business services where job openings, even after this month’s drop, remain far above their prerecession levels.
The Jolts report tracks the pace of hiring, firing and quitting, all of which were unchanged in August. This broadly confirms the trends that have already been reported in the Labor Department’s primary monthly jobs report, released Friday: The labor market over the summer added jobs at a modest but consistent pace. Today’s report shows no evidence of an acceleration in the labor market’s underlying trends, nor any signs of an abrupt deterioration.
The near-record level of openings has been something of a labor market mystery. Normally, one would think record-high job openings would translate to record-high hiring, but that has not been the case over the course of this expansion. Recent months in which openings have increased have not clearly translated into more hiring, nor have months in which openings dropped translated to a decline. That pattern persisted this month.
There are currently about 1.4 unemployed workers for every job opening in the U.S. That’s down significantly from the conditions in the recession and its aftermath when there were more than six workers for every available job.