The red-hot job market cooled somewhat in March, government data showed on Wednesday.
According to the Labor Department, employers had 8.5 million unfilled jobs as of the last day of March, the fewest since the start of 2021. They also filled the fewest positions in nearly four years, suggesting that employers’ seemingly insatiable demand for workers may finally be waning .
A slowing labor market would be welcome news for policymakers at the Federal Reserve, which wraps up a two-day meeting on Wednesday with signs of difficulty containing inflation. Fed officials have said they see falling job openings as a sign that supply and demand are coming into better balance.
For workers, however, this realignment could mean a loss of the bargaining power that has brought them strong wage increases in recent years. The number of workers who voluntarily quit their jobs fell to 3.3 million, the lowest level in more than three years and a far cry from the more than four million a month who left their jobs at the height of the “Great Resignation.” Year 2022 tasks.
“This ongoing slowdown is largely positive for the market and the economy as a whole and is largely sustainable for now,” Nick Bunker, economic research director at Indeed Hiring Lab, wrote in a note on Wednesday. However, he added: “If job vacancies continue to decline for much longer, hiring of unemployed workers will eventually decline to the point of driving unemployment higher.”
However, there are hardly any signs of this so far. Despite major job cuts at some large companies, layoffs remain low overall and declined in March. And although the number of vacancies has fallen, there are still around 1.3 vacancies for every unemployed person. Data released by the Labor Department on Tuesday showed that wage growth increased in the first three months of the year, suggesting that workers continue to have some influence.
The data released Wednesday comes from the Labor Department’s monthly survey of job vacancies and labor turnover. Economists will get a more up-to-date overview of the labor market on Friday when the government releases its monthly jobs report.
Forecasters expect the data to show that employers added about 240,000 jobs in April and that the unemployment rate remained below 4 percent for the 27th straight month.
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2024-05-01 15:20:35
www.nytimes.com
