Soft Landing Hope Floats In Multi-Sigma JOLTS Miss

At long last, US job openings printed a sizable downside surprise versus consensus. Openings as of the last business day of February were 9.93 million, the BLS said Tuesday. That was 500,000 below consensus and represented a near five-sigma miss. This marks the first time job openings have been below 10 million since May of 2021. Better still for the soft landing crowd (whatever's left of it), January's headline was revised lower by a quarter million. Hires dropped as well, but by just a fo

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2 thoughts on “Soft Landing Hope Floats In Multi-Sigma JOLTS Miss”

Employment is just about the most lagging of indicators. Not surprising it took so long, given labor supply shock.

The Opening-to-Unemployed Ratio declining is better than rising, but I suspect it is falling too slowly to be genuine succor. At this rate, the O2U ratio seems unlikely to approach the Fed’s desired 1X before Something Else jolts the Soft Landing hopes. The Something Else may be shrinking spending, falling earnings, another breakage.