Progress Towards US Labor Market Balance Maddeningly Slow

US job openings were 10.824 million as of the last business day of January, critical data released on Wednesday showed. Although I think it's fair to call the figures another disappointment for "team transitory" (whatever's left of those folks), there were some tentative signs of progress towards balancing the labor market. The headline JOLTS print represented a 410,000 decrease in openings versus the prior month. That was good news, but consensus expected a far larger decline, to 10.5 million