U.S. job openings dropped to the lowest level in nearly 2-1/2 years in July as the labor market gradually slowed, bolstering expectations that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates unchanged next month.
Job openings, a measure of labor demand, were down 338,000 to 8.827 million on the last day of July, the lowest level since March 2021. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 9.465 million job openings. Declining job openings are likely to be mirrored by slower job growth in August. Economists expect the increase in nonfarm payrolls moderated further in August after posting in July the second-smallest gain since December 2020.said at the annual Jackson Hole economic conference in Wyoming on Friday that the U.S. central bank “will proceed carefully as we decide whether to tighten further or, instead, to hold the policy rate constant and await further data.” Financial markets expect the U.S.
But the jobless rate could rise in August. The Conference Board’s so-called labor market differential, derived from data on respondents’ views on whether jobs are plentiful or hard to get, narrowed to 26.2% this month. That was the lowest level since April 2021 and was down from 32.4% in July.