Job openings drop to lowest level since January 2021

New national labor market data was released Wednesday, and the news isn’t great. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that job openings fell to a lower level than expected in July — 7.7 million. That’s the smallest number since the beginning of 2021.

If you think back to 2021, that was a pretty good time for the job market. And the number of openings is still relatively strong. Right now, 1.1 jobs are available for every job seeker. Yet that 7.7 million has economists concerned.

Economist Preston Mui of the advocacy think tank Employ America, though, is less concerned about the job seekers of today and more concerned about those who will be looking in the fall or early next year.

“If this trend continues, we’re going to start falling short of full employment,” Mui said.

“The thing that was quite dramatic this month was that the drop in the job openings rate was relatively stark,” Mui said. “But I think you have to take that particular change with a grain of salt.”

Because the job openings number is volatile, Mui is more concerned about people accepting and leaving jobs. So is Guy Berger, director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute.

“If fewer people are being hired, that tells us more about your prospects looking for a job than the number of openings there are,” Berger said.

And while hiring rates bounced back in July after plummeting in June, the long-term trend is still down. The number of people choosing to leave their jobs is down too.

“So essentially, it’s like everybody is kind of frozen in place, and the freeze’s intensifying since hiring’s still coming down,” Berger said.

If the August national jobs report, which will be released Friday, comes in weaker than expected, a Federal Reserve decision to lower interest rates this month is all but certain, experts say. The question would become how big the rate cut will be.

Andy Challenger, senior vice president at outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said the Fed’s actions won’t change employment conditions right away, but “hopefully it’s not too late.”

“The labor market takes some time to ramp up and ramp down, and so just a small change in the interest rate this month might not have an effect on slowing the cooling down for four, five, six months,” he said.