August Job Openings Top 9.6 Million, More Than Expected As The Labour Market Remains Strong

• Employment vacancies at U.S. businesses unexpectedly surged in August, a sign that the labour market remains tight and robust. Job openings totalled 9.61Mn for the month, a jump of nearly 700,000 from July and well above the Dow Jones estimate for 8.8Mn, the Labour Department said Tuesday in its monthly Job Openings and Labour Turnover Survey.
• Hires, however, rose only modestly, moving up to 5.857Mn, an increase of just 35,000. Much of the increase in openings came in professional and business services, which showed a burst of 509,000.
• Stocks fell following the report as a tighter labour market could put more pressure on the Fed to keep interest rates elevated. The Dow Jones Industrial Average most recently was off more than 260 points in the session.
• Openings had been on the decline for the last several months, indicating that the central bank’s interest rate hikes were beginning to have an impact on a labour market that had been hit by a large supply-demand mismatch in which openings had outnumbered available workers 2 to 1. The ratio now is down to 1.5 to 1, following an increase of workers classified as unemployed in August.

(Source: CNBC)