US job openings inch lower to reach 11.266 million in February

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Yahoo! Finance

Yahoo Finance

US job openings inch lower to reach 11.266 million in February

Emily McCormick · Reporter
Tue, March 29, 2022, 10:02 AM

U.S. job openings edged lower last month to retreat only modestly from a record high, and vacancies still far outpaced new hires as employers struggled to bring back more sidelined workers. ... Job openings totaled 11.266 million in February, the Labor Department said in its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary (JOLTS) on Tuesday. This came after job openings came in at 11.283 million in January, according to the Labor Department's revised figure. Consensus economists were looking for 11.000 million job openings last month, according to Bloomberg data.

Though vacancies decreased in the latest survey, the data have been volatile and have yet to show a sustainable trend lower. Openings hit a high of 11.4 million in December — which marked a record in data going back to 2001. And the discrepancy between new hires and job openings has also remained wide, with hires rising by 263,000 to reach 6.7 million in February.

Some of the largest increases in job openings were in the arts and entertainment industries, where vacancies rose by 32,000. Education services and federal government job openings each also increased by more than 20,000 last month. Hires, meanwhile, were seen notably in construction with an increase of 75,000.

Quits, or voluntary departures, have also remained elevated. These were little changed at 4.4 million in February. And the quits rate — a proxy for worker leverage, with a higher figure signaling workers' confidence in finding another job after leaving their current one — rose by 0.1 percentage points to 2.9% in February. That was still well above the 2.3% average throughout 2019.

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Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jolts-us-job-openings-labor-department-february-2022-140219238.html

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. 4.4 million in U.S. quit or changed jobs in February as turnover remained high

Economy

4.4 million in U.S. quit or changed jobs in February as turnover remained high

Demand for workers remains brisk, with employers reporting 11.3 million job openings last month

By Abha Bhattarai and Andrew Van Dam
Today at 10:03 a.m. EDT | Updated today at 11:28 a.m. EDT

Americans continued to switch jobs at near-record rates in February, with 4.4 million workers leaving their positions in a historically tight labor market.

Employers hired 6.7 million people that month while reporting 11.3 million job openings, according to a report released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We continue to have an unusual amount of churn in the job market,” said Erica Groshen, an economist at Cornell University and a former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “We were all just holding our breaths during the worst parts of the pandemic, but now that’s changing.”

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Scott Clement contributed to this report.

By Abha Bhattarai
Abha Bhattarai is the economics correspondent for The Washington Post. She previously covered retail for the publication. Twitter https://twitter.com/abhabhattarai

By Andrew Van Dam
Andrew Van Dam covers data and economics. He previously worked for the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe and the Idaho Press-Tribune. Twitter https://twitter.com/andrewvandam