A sign of a cooling labor market, the number of job openings in the U.S. fell to a three-year low in April, the second month in a row of declining numbers.
Employers posted slightly over 8 million jobs in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, a ratio of approximately 1.2 jobs available for every job hunter. This is the lowest number of jobs posted since February 2021 and the lowest ratio since June 2021.
However, job turnover remained steady in April, with the quits rate—a measure of voluntary separations as a percentage of total employment—staying at 2.2% for the sixth month in a row. The number of new hired inched up to 5.64 million, while layoffs fell from 1.52 million in April from 1.6 million in March—its lowest level since December 2022.
“The decline in openings points to a slower pace of hiring in the months ahead,” said Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics in a note. “However, layoffs remain low, so net job growth should continue to be positive.”
