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The
Labor Department reported Tuesday that employers posted 7.4
million job vacancies in April, up from 7.2 million in March.
Economists had expected openings to drift down to 7.1 million.
But the number of Americans quitting their jobs— a sign of
confidence in their prospects — fell, and layoffs ticked higher.
And in another sign the job market has cooled from the hiring
boom of 2021-2023, the Labor Department reported one job every
unemployed person. As recently as December 2022, there were two
vacancies for every jobless American.
Openings remain high by historical standards but have dropped
sharply since peaking at 12.1 million in March 2022, when the
economy was still roaring back COVID-19 lockdowns.
The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary
showed little evidence of cuts to the federal workforce by
billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Openings for federal jobs rose to 134,000 in April from 121,000
in March. And federal layoffs fell to 4,000 from 8,000 in March
and 19,000 in February.
Although it has decelerated, the American job market has
remained resilient in the face of high interest rates engineered
by the Federal Reserve in 2022 and 2023 to fight a resurgence of
inflation.
The economic outlook is uncertain, largely because of Trump’s
economic policies — huge taxes on imports, purges of federal
workers and the deportation of immigrants working in the United
States illegally.
Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, said
the JOLTS report shows that companies are waiting to see how
Trump’s policies play out. “Once companies are more certain that
bad times are coming, they will start to shed workers,” he wrote
in a commentary. “However, the economy is still near full
employment. We suspect companies are still hoarding workers
until they are very, very sure about an economic downturn.″
The Labor Department is expected to report Friday that employers
added 130,000 jobs last month, down from 177,000 in April. The
unemployment rate is expected to stay at a low 4.2%, according
to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet.
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