JOLTS: Job Openings & Hiring Weaken in November
by:Tom Moeller
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
• The number of job openings are well below March 2022 high.
• New hires continue to decline.
• Layoffs & discharges remain low.
Job openings slipped 0.5% (-4.2% y/y) to 10.458 million during November 2022 from 10.512 million in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Job Openings and Labor Turnover report. The decline followed a 1.6% October drop and left openings 11.8% below the March 2022 high of 11.855 million. The job openings rate (job openings as a percentage of the sum of establishment employment plus openings) held m/m at 6.4% in November. The series high was 7.3% eight months earlier.
New hires weakened 0.9% (-9.7% y/y) to 6.055 million from 6.111 million in October. It left the level of new hires 11.4% below the February high of 6.832 million. The hiring rate eased to 3.9% from 4.0%. The hiring rate reached a peak of 4.5% in February 2022.
The total number of job separations increased 2.0% (-5.3% y/y) to 5.870 million from 5.756 million in October. Layoffs and discharges, involuntary separations, declined 6.6% in November (+4.2% y/y) to 1.350 from 1.445 million in October. They have been trending sideways since April 2021. The number of jobs quit rose 3.1% (-7.5% y/y) to 4.173 million. Fewer quits versus 2021 indicate that jobs became less readily available. The quit rate edged higher to 2.7% but remained below the December 2021 high of 3.0%.
Private-sector job openings eased 0.3% (-4.4% y/y) to 9.501 million following a 1.0% October decline. The private-sector job openings rate held m/m at 6.8% but remained down from the 7.7% high in March of last year. Leisure & hospitality job openings fell 8.8% y/y while factory sector openings weakened 3.3% y/y. Education & health services openings declined 1.6% y/y. Offsetting these declines was a 6.4% y/y rise in openings in the professional & business services sector.
Total hires in the private sector fell 1.3% (-10.5% y/y) to 5.645 million in October while total private-sector separations rose 2.2% (-5.3% y/y) to 5.503 million.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) are available in Haver's USECON database.
Tom Moeller
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Prior to joining Haver Analytics in 2000, Mr. Moeller worked as the Economist at Chancellor Capital Management from 1985 to 1999. There, he developed comprehensive economic forecasts and interpreted economic data for equity and fixed income portfolio managers. Also at Chancellor, Mr. Moeller worked as an equity analyst and was responsible for researching and rating companies in the economically sensitive automobile and housing industries for investment in Chancellor’s equity portfolio. Prior to joining Chancellor, Mr. Moeller was an Economist at Citibank from 1979 to 1984. He also analyzed pricing behavior in the metals industry for the Council on Wage and Price Stability in Washington, D.C. In 1999, Mr. Moeller received the award for most accurate forecast from the Forecasters' Club of New York. From 1990 to 1992 he was President of the New York Association for Business Economists. Mr. Moeller earned an M.B.A. in Finance from Fordham University, where he graduated in 1987. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from George Washington University.
