JOLTS: Little Change In Job Openings, New Hires Amid Slowing Labor Market

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) indicates that the number of new job openings was largely unchanged at 6.7 million positions on Oct. 30, according to the latest report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Wednesday (Dec. 9).

Job openings edged up slightly from the 6.5 million reported Sept. 30; new hires dipped to 5.8 million from 5.9 million. Layoffs and other job separations were up for the first time since June, hitting 1.7 million. The rate of layoffs and discharges went up 1.2 percent, while the quits rate was unchanged at 2.2 percent. About 91,000 layoffs in the federal government were attributed to temporary Census workers. 

“Another way to think about this, for every 16 workers who were officially counted as unemployed, there were only available jobs for 10 of them,” Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, told Reuters. “That means there were no jobs for 4.2 million unemployed workers. And this misses the fact that many more  weren’t counted among the unemployed.” 

According to the BLS, the economy is still 9.8 million jobs short compared to the levels in February, before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the U.S. Retail job creation dropped, while transport and warehouse employment showed an uptick. Openings were up 23,000 in state and local government education after losses the previous two months.

The BLS reported Friday (Dec. 4) that employers added 245,000 jobs last month, the smallest number since May and the fifth consecutive month of slowdowns. June showed 4.8 million new jobs; July, 1.8 million; August, 1.5 million; September, 711,000; October, 610,000. 

The unemployment rate edged down to 6.7 percent in November, while the number of long-term unemployed (27 weeks or more) increased by 385,000 to 3.9 million.

November employment gains were “the lowest number since April, which capped a period of 22 million jobs lost,” according to Mark Hamrick, Bankrate.com senior economic analyst.

New jobless claims started going up again in mid-November as a second wave of infections took hold. Initial jobless claims for the week ending Nov. 28 dropped slightly to 712,000, down 75,000 from the previous week’s revised level.