By PAUL WISEMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. job openings were little changed in October, standing at 7.7 million with continued uncertainty about the direction of the economy.
The Labor Department reported Tuesday that employers posted 7.67 million job openings in October, down from 7.66 million in September.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), which was delayed due to the prolonged government shutdown, also showed that layoffs increased and the number of people leaving their jobs — a sign of confidence in the labor market — decreased in October.
Job postings have declined steadily since hitting a record 12.1 million in March 2022, as the economy was recovering strongly from COVID-19 lockdowns. The labor market has cooled in part due to the lingering effect of high interest rates that the Federal Reserve implemented in 2022 and 2023 to combat inflation.
Overall, it is a disconcerting time for the American economy, shaken by President Donald Trump’s decision to contradict decades of pro-free trade policies and instead impose heavy tariffs on most of the world’s countries.
Federal Reserve policymakers are meeting this week to decide whether to cut their benchmark interest rate, and the meeting is expected to be unusually contentious. Inflation remains stuck above the Fed’s 2% target, in part because importers have tried to pass on the cost of Trump’s tariffs by raising prices. Normally, persistent inflation would discourage Fed policymakers from cutting rates. But the labor market has seemed shaky in recent months, and the Fed is expected to cut its benchmark rate for the third time this year, although some policymakers may disagree.
Meanwhile, the 43-day federal shutdown has thrown the government’s economic statistics into disarray.
The October report on job openings was released a week late, and the September version was not released separately because federal data collectors were on leave. Instead, JOLTS numbers for September were included in Tuesday’s report along with those for October.
The Labor Department will release November hiring and unemployment figures next Tuesday, 11 days later than originally scheduled. The department is not releasing an unemployment rate for October because it was unable to calculate the number during the shutdown. It will release some of October’s employment data — including the number of jobs employers created that month — along with the full November employment report.
Forecasters surveyed by data firm FactSet predict that employers added fewer than 38,000 jobs in November and that the unemployment rate rose to 4.5% from 4.4% in September, low by historical standards but the highest in nearly four years.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor using a generative artificial intelligence tool.
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