Job Openings Top 11 Million, Adding to Inflationary Pressures

The number of job openings in the U.S. rose to what would have been a record level in January–if not for the upward revision to an all-time high for December.

There were 11.3 million jobs posted at the end of January, exceeding the consensus forecast of 10.9 million and the prior month’s preliminary estimate of 10.925 million, Department of Labor data showed Monday.

But the figure for December, which comes from the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey or JOLTS, was revised up to 11.4 million, which means that January was a bit of decline from the end of the year.

The number of people quitting their jobs fell to 4.25 million from 4.4 million, perhaps reflecting some hesitancy on the part of employees to leave amid the spike in Covid-19 infections due to the omicron variant.

Despite the decline, quits are 23 percent above the pre-pandemic level.

The Federal Reserve has described labor market conditions as “extremely tight.” One of the Fed’s favorite measures of that is the ratio of available jobs to unemployed workers. In January, there were 1.7 available jobs for every unemployed worker, historically an extremely high number, though short of record highs hit last year.

Employers added 678,000 jobs in February, an extraordinarily high number, especially given the low level of unemployed workers. The unemployment rate fell to 3.8%, the lowest since the pandemic began, from 4% in January.

 

Federal Reserve officials believe that tightness in the labor market raises the risk that inflation will become entrenched. Inflation in January ran at the higher rate in 40 years. On Thursday, the Department of Labor is expected to release the Consumer Price Index for February. Analysts think year over year inflation will jump to 7.9 from 7.5 in the prior month.

The Federal Reserve is set to raise its benchmark short-term interest rate when it meets next week, its first increase since 2018, in an effort to cool inflation. Wednesday’s JOLTS report suggests that bringing down inflation will be a challenging task for the central bank.
–The Associated Press contributed to this report.