Job openings are plentiful as ever in the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report for September. It gives the best picture of job growth, better than last Friday’s punk unemployment report (with just 194,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs), because it reports actual numbers rather than seasonally adjusted figures reporting changes that deviate from a typical month.
There were 10.5 million job openings (yellow line) in September, and employers are begging for workers because they see a rising demand for goods and services.
There were actually 6.3 million new hires, and 6 million separations, which means workers are leaving their current job in droves to find a better job. The so-called (voluntary) Quits rate, for instance, is up 43 percent YoY, an all time high.
The Calculated Risk graph shows that there was a slight drop in job openings and Hires, but because Quits and Layoffs are increasing (light blue and red bars), it’s a sign of an improving jobs market, says the BLS:
“Total separations includes quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations. Quits are generally voluntary separations initiated by the employee. Therefore, the quits rate can serve as a measure of workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs.”
Much has been written about workers not returning to work, but that number is slowly declining as the vaccine mandates kick in that have brought down the infection rate.
As evidence, weekly jobless benefit claims sank to a new pandemic low and fell below 300,000 for the first time in a year and a half, amid a frantic effort by companies to hire more workers. New jobless claims sank by 36,000 to 293,000 in the seven days ended Oct. 9 from a revised 329,000 in the prior week, the government said Thursday.
Calculated Risk cites yesterday’s CDC report on the decline in infection rates: “…14 states and D.C. have achieved 60% of total population fully vaccinated: Connecticut at 69.6%, Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, New York, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Washington, Oregon, Virginia, District of Columbia, Colorado, and California at 60.0%.”
Inflation has peaked at the moment with the Consumer Price Index above 5%, but U.S. wholesale prices rose in September at the slowest pace in ninth months, which means the supply-chain slowdown that has caused the spike in raw materials could be easing.
This reinforces my belief that we are about to enter a decade of very good growth with plenty of good, available jobs.
Some say that there could be a temporary slowdown if the Democrats can’t get their act together over the twin infrastructure and build back better social bills, or even a longer-term debt ceiling agreement past December.
But that’s hard to believe when it means so much for the party and our country; whatever the final dollar cost.
Harlan Green © 2021
Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen
No comments:
Post a Comment