This is the monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey put out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, also known as “labored” statistics, since they seem to require some weird work to come up with the numbers at times. It wouldn’t be a BLS release without at least one pretty shocking metric. This time it was job openings, up a startling 731,000 jobs from March. Employers must be feeling pretty good if they have added that many openings. The vast bulk were in professional and business services, up 668,000, where you might expect AI to hit hardest, but as is always the case, big innovations usually create lots of new jobs, even if they displace others. There was some increase in government job openings as well, and a decrease in finance and insurance openings and in leisure and hospitality. (BLS Release)
One closely watched measure is now in “positive” territory, as openings exceed unemployed persons once again. Hires and separations, voluntary and involuntary, both decreased by around 400,000. The supposed waves of layoffs due to AI simply isn’t showing up in these numbers. The biggest declines in hiring were in retail trade and business and professional services and those sectors also had the biggest decrease in separations, which makes sense. Once more, an employment-related report that shows little sign of distress in the labor market.
