There were 7.391 million job openings across the world’s largest economy on the last business day of April, according to BLS figures released on Tuesday.
That was up nearly 200,000 from March and well ahead of consensus. Economists expected headline JOLTS to print 7.1 million, tipping the fewest open positions since December of 2020.
Hires rose to 5.573 million, the most in 11 months. That series was meandering near post-pandemic lows, but it’s up 203,000 over the last two releases.
Depending on what you like in your JOLTS reports (“How do you like your eggs?”), this was a decent release: More open jobs and more hires.
Total layoffs were the highest since September (when the Fed panicked about the labor market and cut rates 50bps), but if you look at the history of that series, the April total was bang-on the post-GFC, pre-pandemic average. Same’s true of the layoff rate.
As for quits, the 3.194 million total counted as the fewest this year. Quits hit an eight-month high in the prior release.
The quit rate’s still parked at 2, where it’s loitered since August.
The openings to unemployed ratio — that’s the metric the Fed watches — is now 1.03, up a tick from 1.02.
I’d describe this release as a non-event of the good variety. There’s nothing here that’s going to move any needles, but generally speaking, it suggests the US labor market’s fine. Or was fine, as of six weeks ago.
If Donald Trump followed second-tier macro data, he’d say this is evidence his trade war isn’t impacting businesses’ hiring plans even if it’s weighing on business moods.
I’d offer it’s just another piece of evidence to support the notion that America has a good thing going, and there’s no reason to jeopardize it with massive tariffs.
Another interpretation: the US economy is continuing to experience the +ve effects of massive fiscal stimulus (isn’t that what a budget deficit is?) and the -ve effects (high interest rates) have not yet manifested.
At this point, the -ve effects (I don’t know what that actually means) likely won’t show up. I would not be surprised if the net effect of the high interest rates is actually stimulative for much of the economy since the 10% of households that drive half of consumption in the good old US of A are accruing all that interest. Those folks have long-term debt locked in at very low rates while sitting on cash earning more than what they are paying out in interest on the debt.
JOLTS data is from April, so can’t read much into it. How many businesses were whacking payrolls in the week from Liberation to first TACO – hardly any.
Consumer spending is slowing in 2Q, by various measures. So far, not a dramatic fall, more of an uneven rolling over from strong 1Q levels, bigger in big-ticket purchases, similar across income cohorts. DG just reported its best trade-in activity in 4 years – “trade-in” means middle-income customers starting to shop the dollar store.
https://institute.bankofamerica.com/content/dam/economic-insights/consumer-checkpoint-may-2025.pdf
H details the various ISM/Market surveys.
S&P 500 estimates for 2025 and 2026 have been declining for some months, again not dramatic but more of a steady erosion.
Maybe the cook has decided to simmer the frog rather than using the immersion blender, but anyway I don’t see signs that the frog is hopping out of the pot.
“Maybe the cook has decided to simmer the frog rather than using the immersion blender, but anyway I don’t see signs that the frog is hopping out of the pot.”
Brillant, JL. You are almost matching our Dear Leader on that one!