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Bloomberg News/Landov Employees at Home Depot. Many companies are still looking for help, but job openings and hiring have slowed in the past year.
The numbers: The number of job openings in the United States fell to a two-year low at the end of 2019, reflecting a slowdown in hiring tied to a softening economy.
Job openings sank to 6.42 million in December from 6.79 million, the Labor Department said Tuesday. It’s the second big decline in a row and they declined by more than 1 million in the past 12 months.
Just one year earlier, job openings climbed to the highest level on record at 7.63 million.
What happened: Job openings declined the most in transportation, warehousing, real estate and education,
Very few industries posted more job listings.
A closely followed measure that tracks when workers leave one job for another, known as the quits rate, slipped a notch to 2.5% in the private sector. The rate hit a 14-year peak of 2.7% last summer.
More workers quite when the economy is good and they think they can find a better or better-paying job. Fewer quit if they are less certain about the economy.
Read: U.S. adds 225,000 jobs as hiring speeds up. Labor market called ‘astounding’
Also: The U.S. created 514,000 fewer jobs in 2018-19 than originally reported
Big picture: Job opening have declined sharply in the past year, but there’s still plenty of work to be found. Available jobs still top the 5.9 million Americans officially classified as unemployed.
The economy, meanwhile, has shown more oomph in early 2020. The U.S. added a robust 225,000 new jobs in January to keep the unemployment rate near a 50-year low of 3.6%.
What remains to be seen is whether openings snap back in January after unusually big back-to-back declines at the end of 2019.
Perhaps a bigger problem is a shortage of skilled workers given the tight labor market. Many jobs haven’t been filled because companies can’t find the right people to fill them.
Whatever the case, the strong U.S labor market is keeping the economy churning ahead. The economy has been growing for a record 10 and a half years.
What they are saying? “Though there are still more job openings than unemployed workers for the 22nd straight month, this trend is concerning,” said Tara Sinclair, senior fellow at Indeed Hiring Lab.
Read: Fed’s Powell says the coronavirus poses a risk to the U.S. economy
Market reaction: The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.28% and S&P 500 SPX, +0.58% rose in Tuesday trades and are trading near or at record highs.
The 10-year Treasury yield TMUBMUSD10Y, +1.25% edged up 1.59%.
