The Labor Market Begins to Implode

My post earlier yesterday was pretty prescient.  The “JOLTS” report, which focuses on the dynamics of the labor market–how many job openings, how many terminations, etc., was released and it shows a further underwinding of the fantasy that the Bidementia administration created about the labor market, as there were more revisions of past data.  As usual, the administration was counting on people only paying to initial overly-optimistic release and ignore the later more accurate revisions.

Job openings, which supposedly measure the growth of the job demand, dropped by over 600,000 to about 8.7 million, most of which are made-up to begin with, as companies routinely post jobs they have no intention of hiring for.  This is the biggest drop since the start of the epidemic.  But the drop was actually worse because the original September number was revised lower, of course.  Job openings are about 2.2 million higher than the supposed number of unemployed persons, which is a drop in the ratio but also begs the question, if there are all these job openings, then why are people unemployed?  Do they really want to work?  Can there be that much of a skills mismatch?

The number of people quitting their jobs and the number hired for a new job also dropped modestly.  Fewer people may be quitting because of concerns about finding a new job elsewhere.  As we know from the jobs reports, of which we will receive a new one on Friday, the numbers on hires are likely completely bogus.  And once more, one reason the data is so unreliable is because it is survey data and the response rate is a pathetic 32%.  (ZH Post)