[9/7/16] Moments ago the BLS reported Janet Yellen’s favorite labor market indicator, the JOLTS survey, which as expected (since it tracked the far stronger than expected July payrolls) showed that in July the number of job opening rebounded from the June drop to 5.643 million, jumping by over 200K jobs to a new all time high of 5.871 million, nearly 300K more than the 5.580 million expected.
The June job opening rate (job openings as a % of total employment plus openings) rose to 3.9% vs 3.8% prior month, with the greatest number of job openings in the professional and business services sector at 1.27 million, followed by education and health with 1.078 million, and trade, transportation and utilities in third place with 1.030 million.
The number of unemployed workers per job opening has dropped to 1.35. When the most recent recession began (December 2007), the number of unemployed persons per job opening was
1.9. The ratio peaked at 6.6 unemployed persons per job opening in July 2009 and has trended downward since.
Job openings declined to a series low in July 2009, one month after the official end of the most recent recession. Employment continued to decline after the end of the recession, reaching a low point in February 2010.
And yet despite the record number of job openings, the pace of hiring has failed to keep up. The BLS reported were 5.2 million hires in July 2016 approaching prerecession levels. Total separations are near their prerecession levels, at 4.9 million in July 2016.
The number of hires has exceeded the…CONTINUE READING