Today, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its September Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary. While the report states that “The number of job openings was little changed to 7.4 million on the last business day of September,” the number is actually down from 7.86 million in August. The August job openings number was revised from 8.04 million to 7.86 million.
This news comes just a few weeks after recently being told that the labor market was booming. We were skeptical of the good news at Freedom Finances, and now we see that the skepticism is paying off, as the data shows that the labor market is continuing to struggle or at best, stagnate. We already know that long-term unemployment is a major issue in the United States, and now we can see that the strength of our labor market is much weaker than many have claimed.
The above graphic from yahoo!finance shows the BoLS job openings report over the past 5 years.
Job Openings History
Job openings reached a five-year high in March of 2022 at 12.18 million. However, as you can see in the above chart, job openings did not equate to a significant increase in hiring. Hirings were down from mid-2020s, after the early COVID-spike of hiring and employees quitting.
Since March of 2022, both job openings, and hires have been on the decline. Unemployment in September was 4.1%, up from 3.8 in 2023. Right now, job openings can barely cover the unemployed, and hires show that there is still about a 1.5 million overall discrepancy.
The debate is still open as to whether or not the labor market is a strong enough indicator in the economy to show that we are in a recession (though it seems we are not quite there yet). While the Congressional Research Service discussed in August if the Sahm Rule (which indicates a recession based on the labor market) has been triggered, the economy and the labor market seemed stronger than it is now, and those numbers have since been revised down.
We won’t really know what to think about the job market for a few more months, but ultimately, there are still those out there struggling, especially the long-term unemployed. Unfortunately, the coverage of this topic has been skewed to reflect personal/organizational political views. At Freedom Finances, we strive to bring unbiased views outside of political or ideological beliefs. Instead, we bring you information based on facts and data.
Check out our video review of this topic below:
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