Labor market figures released Tuesday show that layoffs are few and job openings are still plentiful.
Key Details
- Despite recession worries and layoff fears, the job market has a positive outlook, according to data released Tuesday.
- Fewer people are filing for unemployment and job openings remain common.
- Job openings actually rose in September, indicating that the labor shortage is still ongoing.
Why it’s news
Worries about layoffs had been circulating as inflation continued to rise and recession fears increased, but the data shows that those worries have so far been unfounded.
This summer, it appeared that employers were cutting back on job openings, but it now seems that this trend didn’t continue into the fall in most industries.
Job hopping is continuing. Around 4.1 million employees quit their jobs in September, a lower number than last year but still higher than before the pandemic.
These factors indicate that the labor market is still hot as employers continue to search for employees and hold tightly to the ones they do have. High numbers of employees quitting suggests that workers are still confident in their ability to find a job.
While this may be good news for some laborers, the hot labor market does signal bad news for the Federal Reserve. The market could be viewed as “unsustainably hot,” according to Federal Reserve chair Jermone Powell.
Ideally, the Fed would like to see the demand for employees drop while companies retain their current workers. The data released revealed that the opposite happened.
In order to slow down such a hot labor market, the Fed may need to take more aggressive measures.
