As the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday, available jobs rose in October while hiring fell. This was a month in which wage growth hit its lowest level in almost four years.
There were a total of 7.74 million job openings this month, 372,000 more than in September and higher than the Dow Jones estimate of 7.5 million, the BLS said in its survey of job vacancies and labor turnover. The share of job offers in the workforce rose from 4.4% to 4.6%.
That pushed the ratio of available jobs to unemployed people to 1.1, about half of what it was during the peak of a massive gap between supply and demand in 2022.
Hiring also fell at a time when the job market was disrupted by severe storms in the Southeast and two major labor strikes involving longshoremen Boeing. Hiring totaled 5.31 million, down 269,000 from the previous month, reducing the hiring rate to 3.3%. That is also a decrease of 0.2 percentage points.
However, the number of layoffs fell to 1.63 million, a decrease of 169,000 from September. In addition, the number of voluntary job terminations rose by 228,000 to 3.33 million compared to September.
The data comes in a month in which the BLS reported nonfarm payroll growth of just 12,000, the worst month since December 2020.
The Federal Reserve is closely watching the JOLTS report for signs of tightness or slack in the labor market. Markets expect the Fed to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point at its meeting later this month, partly to address possible weakness in the labor market.
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