US job openings fall to 11.4 million

US job openings dropped to 11.4 million in April from a record 11.9 million in the prior month, signaling some softening in what’s still the tightest labour market in decades.

The number of people who quit jobs in April, meanwhile, was little changed at 4.4 million, the Labour Department said Wednesday. Vacancies in the health care and social assistance industry fell by 266,000. There were 162,000 fewer job openings in the retail sector, while open positions in the accommodation and food services industry decreased by 113,000.

But the transportation, warehousing, and utilities sector had an additional 97,000 unfilled jobs. Job openings increased by 67,000 in nondurable goods manufacturing, while makers of durable goods had 53,000 more vacancies.

Job openings remained at considerably high levels, suggesting that wages would continue to rise as companies scramble for workers, and contribute to inflation staying uncomfortably high for a while.

The Job Openings and Labour Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report, from the Labour Department on Wednesday also showed layoffs dropping to a record low, underscoring the jobs market tightness. The Federal Reserve, fighting to push inflation down to its 2% target, is trying to bring demand and supply of labour back into alignment without pushing the unemployment rate too high.

There are few signs that the Fed’s aggressive monetary policy stance is cooling demand in the overall economy. Activity at US factories activity picked up in May as demand for goods remained strong, other data showed. The reports further allayed fears of an imminent recession, which have been fanned by rising interest rates and tightening financial conditions.

Job openings, a measure of labour demand, declined by 455,000 to 11.4 million on the last day of April. Data for March was revised higher to show a record 11.855 million vacancies instead of the previously reported 11.5 million. April’s job openings were in line with economists’ expectations. The job openings rate slipped to 7.0% from 7.3% in March.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell last month described job openings as “extraordinarily high,” and said “there’s a path by which we would be able to have demand moderate in the labour market and therefore have vacancies come down without unemployment going up.” The jobless rate held at a two-year low of 3.6% in April.

The Fed has raised its policy interest rate by 75 basis points since March. It is expected to hike the overnight rate by half a percentage point at both its June and July meetings. Companies struggled to find workers to fill the open jobs. Hiring fell by 59,000 to 6.586 million. That left the hires rate unchanged at 4.4%. With workers scarce, layoffs remain low. Layoffs and discharges dropped by 170,000 to an all-time low of 1.246 million. Resignations remained high, with 4.424 million quitting, little changed from March.