According to Wednesday's Labor Department report, July saw more job openings than unemployed. This was due to companies struggling to fill record numbers of vacancies.
The Federal Reserve closely monitors the department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for signs of employment slack. It showed that 10.9 million jobs were available. This was significantly higher than the FactSet estimate at 9.9 million or the June total of 10.18 millions.
This number was much higher than the 8.7million people who were out of work or looking for work in July. JOLTS data is a month behind nonfarm payrolls reports, which showed July growth of 1.05 millions.
August saw a sharp slowdown in hiring, with payrolls increasing by only 235,000, despite the fact that 8.4 million people were unemployed.
The rate at which job openings are measured in relation to the total labor force increased to 6.9% in July from 6.5% the month before and 4.6% last year.
The industry perspective shows that the rate rose to 10.7% from 10.2% for the critical leisure and hospitality sector, which was the worst affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Openings increased to 1.82million, which is a 134,000 increase over June.
Openings in financial activities saw a significant increase, with the rate increasing to 5.8% from 3.8%. This represents more than 200,000 additional positions. The number of government openings increased significantly, from 4.2% to 4.6%, or nearly 100,000.
The Northeast rate rose from 6.2% to 7.2%. Despite being hardest hit by Covid cases, the South still had the highest number of job openings at 7.1%. This is an increase of 226,000 since June.
In reality, the monthly hires rate dropped to 4.5% from 4.7%. However, the quits rate was stable at 2.7%. This is a gauge of worker confidence. Discharges and layoffs rose to 1%.
