America’s Cracked Labour Market: There are 4.6 Million More Job Openings Than Unemployed Workers

What appeared to be the final pinnacle in America’s labour market with job opening figures remaining stagnant at around 10 million, has just been revised upwards to yet another record in December, as businesses increasingly continue to struggle filling vacant positions.

The latest JOLT survey from the Labour Department showed that there were a near-record total 10.925 million job openings in December, marking an increase of 1.4% from the prior month, and substantially above the 10.28 million forecast by FactSet. Looking under the hood, vacancies were up across a number of sectors, primarily in accommodation and food services, local government education, and nondurable goods manufacturing, while job openings slumped in finance and insurance as well as in wholesale trade.

However, what’s even more astonishing is that despite the broad tightening of the labour market, December’s increase in vacancies now means there are about 4.6 million more job openings than unemployed Americans, further indicating that the labour market sits in great disrepair. As such, that means there are about 0.644 unemployed workers for every vacant position— down from a record-high of 4.6 at the height of the pandemic in April.

Slightly outweighing the sharp increase in job openings, the month of December saw hiring fall by about 333,000 to 6.263 million, with majority of the hires falling across the professional and businesses services industry. The JOLTs survey also showed the “quits” level slumped 3.6% to 4.34 million, while the quits rate fell 0.1 percentage point to 2.9%.

The latest JOLT survey comes ahead of the Labour Department’s jobs data, which, according to the White House, is going to be one ugly print. Currently, the figures are is expected to show an increase of about 150,000 more jobs for the month of January— the lowest increase since December 2020.

Information for this briefing was found via the Labour Department and the companies mentioned. The author has no securities or affiliations related to this organization. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.

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