After seven consecutive months of massive increases in job openings (where even the weakest month saw a 290K increase and the strongest, July, saw a record 913K new jobs openings), moments ago the BLS reported that in August, the number of job openings in the US finally tumbled, dropping by a whopping 659K in August (recall the JOLTS report has an extra month delay vs the payrolls report), the third biggest drop on record, and the first monthly decline of 2021. Still, even with the big drop, the total number of job openings remains a solid 10.439 million, the second-highest number on record!
The sharp drop in openings took place one month before millions of Americans lost their emergency pandemic benefits, and while we have yet to see a big surge in payrolls as a result of millions of unemployed workers collecting benefits returning to the workforce, we expect continued declines in job openings in the coming months as more and more vacant jobs are filled. But not just yet.
Looking at the details, job openings decreased in several industries with the largest decreases in health care and social assistance (-224,000); accommodation and food services (-178,000); and state and local government education (-124,000). Job openings increased in the federal government (+22,000). The number of job openings decreased in the Northeast and Midwest regions
As a reminder, when looking at the JOLTS report last month, we pointed out that for the first time ever, there were over 2 million more vacant jobs than unemployed workers. Well, fast forward one month and despite the sharp drop in job openings, since the number of unemployed people also dropped, there was still a staggering 2+ million more vacant jobs than unemployed workers confirming that the US labor market remains painfully cracked.
Obviously, with far more job openings than unemployed workers, this meant that in August there were again less than 1 unemployed workers (0.8031 to be exact) for every job opening, up from 0.7841 in July, and down from a record 4.6 at the peak crisis moment last April.
Furthermore, in August in addition to a decline in job openings, we also saw a modest slowdown in hiring: in August the BLS reported that hiring dropped by 439K – the biggest monthly decline of 2021 – to 6.322 million, as hires decreased in accommodation and food services (-240,000) and in state and local government education (-160,000).
Perhaps the most interesting highlight of today’s JOLTS report, however, was neither the openings nor the hiring activity, but rather the number of quits, which surged by 242K to a new all-time high of 4.270 million. The quits rate increased to a series high of 2.9% as quits increased in accommodation and food services (+157,000); wholesale trade (+26,000); and state and local government education (+25,000). As a reminder, this “take this job and shove it” indicator is generally seen as a real-time proxy of how marketable employees think they are, as they tend to quit jobs and look for higher-paying occupations when the job market is red hot. And since it tends to lag peaks in job openings modestly, the surge in quits was probably not all that surprising.
Still, with emergency benefits expiring one month after this latest JOLTS report took place, we wouldn’t read too much into it since virtually everything is set to change in the coming months as a new and unknown dynamic emerges as millions of Americans start returning to the labor force.
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The change will not be millions joining the work force.
Vaccine mandates are making more people leave the workforce, besides many potential and current workers will be disabled or killed by the vaccine, blamed on some Covid variant or the unvaccinated.
1,900 are dying a day in the US from “Covid” cases that are really dying from the vaccine, and cold/flu season hasn’t started yet that they have no immunity from.
They are also not counting many deaths 2 weeks after the boosters. Wonder where working age people are going? Millions will die this winter. Increases of working people in jobs will not happen.
If the mandates make people leave the workforce, how do they make a living afterwards?
Unemployment is generally unavailable to people that leave a job voluntarily or who are fired with cause.
There are a shitload of jobs around here that are now paying top dollar. It’s a fight to get people to work. I finally got my pension coming in and I could go to work now for a lot of places (even being an old fart). I would rather do my own thing though it is a LOT easier and hassle free. You have to be tough to get old, and plan for an easy way to make $$. With the rush to get prepped there are hundreds of opportunities to make money off it. The stupid WILL PAY! And pay dearly for their ignorance. Want power? That will be 5000 bux please. But then replacing what you sell keeps going up all the time. Poor fools don’t have a clue what they are in for….
In the business model, where there are cyclical job openings, you have un-fire-able reprobates, social failures, and replacement demographics, still working.
Productive people are told to re-apply for the same position, which they have already held for some months.
Business news acts like, ‘Oh, they just quit for some reason…’
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The gov’t has skewed statistics so long and so wildly I don’t think they even know anything with accuracy. They’re merely guessing, or making assertions for public consumption.
For examples, food and fuels/energy are not factors used when calculating the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The gov’t says it’s because they have volatile prices. The real reason is food and fuels/energy reflect real increase in costs and if these costs were averaged in it would show a higher number than what it wants people to see. Another example is the rate of inflation, this too is purposely understated so that people will not see the real decline in buying power, decline in wages, and loss of value in the dollar. A report was issued about two years ago stating if Social Security payments kept apace with the real rate of inflation monthly payments would be about 35 % higher than currently are.
As for the employment numbers, there are too many inconsistent numbers to reconcile. We are told unemployment is almost at a record low, but then we are told millions of unemployed cannot find work, yet there are several million jobs not filled. However, the Dept. of Labor does not count people who have been unemployed more than a year because the assumption is they are not looking for a job. That being the case, how do they come up with a number of unemployment since millions have decided not to work since the “pandemic” began almost 2 years ago. Is it because of covid or is it because there are no jobs when in reality there are millions of available jobs – confusing. It’s a big pile of BS. The truth is there about 70 million adults of working age not working, many because they are not looking for work.
Here are some more statistics we are being told: prez JB won by a landslide, he is the most popular prez ever, the current 3.5 trillion dollar spending bill won’t cost one cent, the south border is under control, the inflation rate is about 2 – 3 % (actually about 10%), it will take 15 days to flatten the curve then covid will be gone, there’s lots more. The point is the gov’t has made its case for us, it simply cannot be believed, in anything. Officialdom is not very good with math, they don’t lie well either.
I see a lot of container ships stuck out at those ports filled with food, electronics etc. Probably most of this garbage is from China anyways so who needs it. I hope China’s economy goes down. Let the food rot and the mice chew the cords on those electronics. Then, China won’t make any money. Furthermore, China thinks they are pretty important to ‘condemn’ the US and Canada for ‘sticking’ up for Taiwan. Well, fu#%ck you China. The whole world should condemn YOU! You pollute the earth with all your pollution and material garbage. China is a shit stain on the world.