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Listen Live
Saturday’s: 9AM 1590 AM/97.9 FM KVTA
Sunday’s: 7AM K-EARTH 101 FM
U.S. job openings unexpectedly dropped in August to the lowest level in over a year as the Federal Reserve tries to bring down near-record high inflation and cool the labor market.
The Labor Department said Tuesday that there were 10.1 million job openings in August – a major decline from the previous month’s revised reading of 11.17 million.
Still, the number of available jobs has topped 10 million for 15 consecutive months; before the pandemic began in February 2020, the highest on record was 7.7 million.
The Federal Reserve closely watches these figures as it tries to gauge labor market tightness; the lower-than-expected number of openings could provide some relief for policymakers as they try to slow the economy and cool painfully high inflation.
Meanwhile, the number of Americans quitting their jobs rose to 4.2 million, or about 2.7% of the workforce – below the high of 4.5 million recorded earlier this year, but well above the pre-pandemic level of about 3.6 million. Hiring was also mostly unchanged at 6.3 million.
