Job openings fall more than expected

The US Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey showed there were 8.06 million job openings in April, down from the revised 8.355 million in March and fewer than the 8.35 million economists polled by Bloomberg were expecting. It’s the lowest level since February 2021.

The job opening rate was 4.8% compared to 5.0% the prior month and the quit rate was 2.2%, which matched the March rate.

Yahoo Finance’s Madison Mills and Brad Smith break down the data.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Catalysts.

This post was written by Stephanie Mikulich.

Video Transcript

Breaking news coming up on our show here with labour market data jolts job openings Labour Turnover Survey coming out for April coming in at 8.06 million versus the 8.35 million that was expected.

So that is a myth that is potentially going to be good news for the market and taking a look at the overall survey, we’re seeing several different factors coming in below estimates here.

The April job opening rate coming in at 4.8% versus 5%.

This is a percentage of the total employment plus openings that you’re looking at.

There also the pace of hiring critical to watch coming in just in line here at 3.6% versus 3.6% of the prior month.

A lot of guests telling us that the pace of hiring is very critical to watch.

So interesting to see that coming just in line, we see the stock market coming kind of pairing some of its earlier losses the S and P nearing that flat line.

So this could be an indication that the jolts coming in below estimates kind of across the board is looking good for markets also quickly want to mention layoffs.

We’re seeing 1.5 million people fired or laid off.

In April previous year it was 1.6 million.

So seeing a little bit of a decline in the number of people laid off.

But overall, that headline number coming in below estimates, I’m focusing on some of the areas where we did see job openings change the biggest decreases in health care and social assistance down 204,000, and then in state and local government education as well.

By 59,000, however, you did see a little bit of a rise in private educational services.

That was up by about 50,000.

As you mentioned, that rate for job openings a little changed 4.8% the number of hires as well.

Within this report, the rates there little change.

It held at 3.6% and increased in durable goods manufacturing and ultimately did see some decreases, though that came in arts, education and recreation.

That was down 45,000 and federal government jobs down 8000.

Yeah, it’s interesting, Brad, because it really paints this picture of a potential Goldilocks scenario.

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But the big question for markets is whether or not we’re going to see things tip into too much softness.

Right?

So that’s gonna be my big question moving forward in our show today.

Are we seeing too much softness that could be a catalyst for negative growth?