US Job Vacancies Jump To New High—Report
According to figures released by Bureau of Labor Statistics job vacancies in the US jumped to 7.6 million as many employers are looking for qualified personnel to fill vacant positions. The Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) that measure employment vacancies level and also checks on number of people that have left jobs along with data about reasons for their separations that shows a continuous growth of job opportunities in the country. The survey of January was expected to show only around 7.31 million new job opportunities against the explosive figure in December which was at 7.34 million.
December was amazing for job seekers as non-farm based payrolls increased by 311,000. Several government bodies eagerly wait for this report and Federal Reserve uses these figures to gauge tightness in labor market which is a key element under consideration while formulating monetary policy and planning interest rates. The survey showed that there are more job opportunities in the market when compared to available labor force in the country. A previous report of BLS stated that around 6.5 million Americans were unemployed though it was 11th month in a row when job openings exceeded available workers.
Openings in public sector surged with 59,000 new jobs while wholesale trading sector declared 91,000 jobs while real estate and rental industry had 60,000 new opening. Other growth area was information technology that had 42,000 jobs. Some services sector witnessed decline like retail which dropped by 97000 while arts, recreation and entertainment sectors declined by 40000. Though the count of people that left jobs voluntarily remained unchanged at 2.3 percent of labor force the actual numbers rose from 3.4 million in December to 3.5 million in March. Besides the encouraging gain in job openings BLS’s previous data showed that job vacancies in 2018 were more than expected and it closed down with 7.48 million job opportunities.