A hiring sign is displayed at a restaurant in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Wednesday, May 10, 2023. On Wednesday, the Labor Department reports on job openings and labor turnover for April. U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in April, illustrating the resilience of the American labor market and complicating Federal Reserve efforts to fight inflation.
"Demand for workers is still strong and the labor market is largely continuing to chug along nicely,'' said Nick Bunker, research director at the Indeed Hiring Lab. The Fed has raised its benchmark interest rate 10 times in the last 14 months, making it more expensive for businesses to borrow and invest. The central bank is hoping achieve a so-called soft landing — raising rates enough to slow hiring, economic growth and price increases without tipping the world's biggest economy into recession.
Hiring has slowed after posting the best two years on record in 2021 and 2022. Employers added 666,000 jobs from February through April — decent numbers by traditional standards but still the weakest three months of job creation since January 2021.