Job openings go down (but maybe not)?

Some expected baddish news, but perhaps also some hidden strength

• Fewer job openings and softer than before

• less-lagged data tells a slightly different story (which may disappoint fed cuts now)

• of migration and the labor market (a reprise)

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Job openings declining (or maybe not)?

Random Walk kicked off the week with some pretty long posts, so today will be brief.

It was the first leg of jobs day, and the numbers didn’t fail to disappoint, as expected.

Job openings continue to fall:

BLS

Openings are now as low as they’ve been since back in 2021, when things were just reopening.

Perhaps more importantly, the ratio of job openings to unemployed workers is now lower than it was before the pandemic:

Indeed

An historically pro-worker job market, has now become slightly more boss-friendly than the status quo ante.

And as the labor market softens, the capital markets salivate for rate cuts (by fleeing equities and running to bonds).

For the newly initiated, structurally this a very big deal.

The pandemic labor shortage (driven by secular aging, plus a pull forward of retirement) was the defining feature of the pandemic “recovery.” The shortage was responsible for most of the second leg of inflation, and closing that shortage (through some combination of an Open Border and coaxing retirees back to labor force) is what predictably brought inflation mostly to heel.

What most described as job growth, was in fact catch-up, and now that we’re all caught up, the question is ‘can we grow (ideally in some other way that isn’t just more healthcare for the elderly)?’

Even worse, what if instead of just catching up, the supply of labor begins to overrun the mark? Does a shortage become a glut?

A weird unemployment rises, but also maybe relief is already here?

Well, for the moment at least, the supply of labor does appear to have overrun the mark.