Job openings rose in April and the number of workers hired climbed, suggesting the labor market is strengthening after a soft spell in the prior two months.
Job postings edged up to 7.4 million in April from 7.2 million in the prior month, the Labor Department said Tuesday.
Economists had expected job openings to fall for a third consecutive month to 7.1 million.
The rise in openings and hires indicates that demand for worker is healthier than expected and employers are not reacting to uncertainty about tariffs and interest rates by slashing plans to grow payrolls. While many critics of the Trump administration predicted the labor market would soften due to tariffs and uncertainty about trade policy, the data suggests stability.
The rise in openings was driven by the private sector, with businesses looking to fill 6.544 million vacant positions as of the end of April. That’s up 6.342 million in March.
Government job openings fell in April, led by a decline in state and local education employers.
The jobs data, which comes from the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (known as JOLTS), likely will keep the Federal Reserve on the sidelines. It supports that the Fed’s claims that the labor market is healthy enough to withstand interest rates at the current levels. With inflation falling, the Fed’s decision to hold its target rate steady so far this year means that the real rate—that is, the target rate after inflation—has been rising.
Read the full article here