U.S. job openings rose to a record level in March, with labor demand still outpacing supply across many firms throughout the country.
Job openings increased to 11.549 million in March, the Labor Department said in its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary (JOLTS) on Tuesday. Job openings had totaled 11.344 million in February, according to the revised monthly print. Consensus economists were looking for job openings to decline to 11.200 million for March, according to Bloomberg data.
The number of vacancies across the U.S. economy has far outpaced the number of hires, which were little changed month-on-month at 6.7 million in March. And the number of quits also edged up to a record high of 4.5 million, with the quits rate hovering little changed at 3.0%.
By industry, job openings rose significantly among retail trade employers, with vacancies increasing by 155,000 month-on-month. Durable goods manufacturing industries also saw vacancies rise by 50,000 in March. On the other hand, vacancies decreased by 69,000 in transportation, warehousing and utilities industries, and by 43,000 in state and local government education.
Job openings across the board, however, remain well above pre-pandemic levels, as vacancies were averaging around just 7.1 million per month throughout 2019. And these openings have remained even as firms have brought back workers at rates well above pre-virus levels for much of the past year.
"Businesses have hired some 3.5M people in the past six months, almost triple the pace we'd expect to see in the middle of a normal cycle, so they must be making inroads into their hiring backlog. This pace of hiring can't be sustained indefinitely, and some surveys point to a slowdown over the next few months," Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a note. "But it's important to distinguish between normalization in job growth and a late cycle downshift. We see little near-term risk of the latter."
Labor scarcities have remained one of the major sources of pressure on U.S. companies in recent months, leading to a dearth of workers to keep pace with demand. This mismatch of supply and demand has also pushed wages higher, which while benefitting workers, has led many companies to pass on their additional costs to consumers and contribute to already decades-high rates of inflation. Consumer prices last rose by 8.5% in March over last year, while average hourly earnings rose by 5.6%.
Later this week, the Labor Department's latest monthly jobs report will provide an updated snapshot of the strength in hiring across the U.S. As of Tuesday, consensus economists expected that non-farm payrolls rose by 390,000 in April, which would slow just slightly from March's increase of 431,000. The unemployment rate is expected to dip to 3.5%, matching February 2020's level for the lowest since 1969.
The April jobs report is set for release Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET.
—
Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter: @emily_mcck
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
Follow Yahoo Finance on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flipboard, LinkedIn, YouTube, and reddit
