Job openings tumbled in October to their lowest in 2½ years, a sign the historically tight labor market could be loosening…
The decline in vacancies brought the ratio of openings to available workers down to 1.3 to 1, a level that only a few months ago was around 2 to 1 and is nearly inline with the pre-pandemic level of 1.2 to 1.
Federal Reserve policymakers watch the report, known as the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, closely for signs of labor slack.
DB2
What they do not know–or report–is the actual number of REAL job openings (eliminating the “fishing expedition” announced/posted positions that are not expected/intended to be filled).
True, but the survey indicates trends.
DB2
How would someone identify those job postings?
JimA
Interesting. The number is seasonally adjusted. My first thought was less seasonal retail, due to a greater shift to on-line purchasing, but retail is way down the list. The largest drops were in education and health care, two segments that you would think are independent of the economy.
The biggest sector decline was education and health services (-238,000), followed by financial activities (-217,000), leisure and hospitality (-136,000), and retail (-102,000).
Steve
Harder to identify them now due to changes in laws requiring employers to include a salary range. I always figure 20% to 35% are fake and most of the rest are “looking”, to see who is (i.e. how many people) available and meet the stated requirements. I found most applicants (90+%) did not meet the stated job requirements when I was hiring people in 1981.
So how would you expect the Fed policymakers to take that in to account? Why would this be a thing if no one can identify the ‘fake’ job postings? Personally, I don’t think there is any significant amount of ‘fake’ job postings to be concerned with.
JimA
When employers are desperate (or mgmt is a bunch of idiots–as usual), they try all kinds of things to find/get people and then “pay less”. Saw it lots of times. Right now, the market is trying to figure out what it needs in terms of a workforce. AI will be interesting. But where and how to use it? Expect a lot of “experienced AI expert” with 5 yrs AI background ads. I saw a number of similarly clueless ads over the decades.