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The number of vacancies per unemployed worker, a ratio the Federal Reserve watches closely, held at 1.2 and matched the lowest since June 2021. At its peak in 2022, the ratio was 2 to 1.
Speaking Tuesday at a European central bank conference in Portugal, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said there's been a "substantial" move toward better balance in the labor market between the supply of and demand for workers. He continued to describe the job market as strong, but said it is cooling off appropriately so.
Although the JOLTS data suggest healthy labor demand, it's difficult to draw conclusions from one month. Other figures point to a job market that is slowly cooling and looking more like the one before the pandemic. Hiring and wage gains have eased in recent months, while more people are now receiving unemployment benefits after staying historically low.
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The May advance in openings was driven by manufacturing, government and health care. Vacancies in accommodation and food services led all industries that declined.
Economists expect that trend to continue ahead of Friday's jobs report, which is expected to show employers added about 195,000 payrolls in June and the unemployment rate held at 4%.
The pickup in hiring was led by professional and business services and construction. Business services was also the industry with the most layoffs, suggesting a larger number of people are switching jobs. Overall, the South accounted for most of the rise in dismissals.
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The so-called quits rate, which measures people who voluntarily leave their job, held at 2.2, the lowest since 2020. The quits rate suggests that people are less confident in their ability to find a new position than they were a couple years ago.
Some economists have questioned the reliability of the JOLTS statistics, in part because of the survey's low response rate.
