Job openings top 11.2 million in July, well above estimate and nearly double the available workers

• There were nearly 1Mn more job openings than expected in July, an inflationary sign that the U.S. labour market is still extremely tight, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday, August 30, 2022.
• Available positions totalled 11.24Mn for the month, well in excess of the 10.3Mn FactSet estimate, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). The total was about 200,000 higher than the 11.04Mn in June, a number revised up from the initially reported 10.7Mn.
• Federal Reserve officials watch the JOLTS numbers closely for signs of slack in hiring. The July numbers reinforced that there is still a considerable shortage of workers for available positions, with openings outnumbering available workers by just shy of a 2-to-1 margin. That, in turn, is inflationary as employers are forced to offer higher compensation to attract workers at a time when prices are rising near their fastest pace in more than 40 years.
• Hiring declined during the month, falling to 6.38Mn. Quits, a closely watched metric for worker confidence, also dropped, down to 4.18Mn as those leaving their jobs as a percentage of the workforce declined one-tenth of a percentage point to 2.7%, still relatively high by historical standards.

(Source: CNBC)