(TNND) — A new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reinforced that Americans are in a low-hire, low-fire labor market.
The labor market is strong but weakening, labor economist Aaron Sojourner said.
Employers are hesitant to make big changes in the face of huge amounts of uncertainty about policy and technology, he said.
Businesses aren’t willing to commit to expanded payrolls, unsure if expansion will lead to higher profits.
The JOLTS, or Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, for November showed job openings and hires were down from October.
Total separations were flat. But quits increased, and layoffs were lower.
“The basic story is the same as recent months and recent years,” said Sojourner, the deputy director of research at the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
The number of job openings didn’t change much in November at 7.1 million, down 303,000 from a revised October.
The job opening rate came in at 4.3% in November, down from 4.5% a month earlier.
That rate was 4.8% and 5.2% the last two Novembers.
The BLS said the number of job openings was down by 885,000 over the year.
In November, the highest job opening rate was in professional and business services at 5.6%. Private education and health services, and leisure and hospitality also had job opening rates at or above 5%.
Hires and total separations both totaled about 5.1 million in November. And neither represented a big change from recent months.
FILE – People are seen during a job fair June 26, 2024, in Sunrise, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The layoff, or firing, rate dipped back to 1.1% after registering 1.2% in October.
That’s consistent with recent months and continues a streak of historically low levels.
Workers are enjoying near record job security, Sojourner said.
Meanwhile, the quits rate ticked up from 1.9% in October to 2% in November.
That was also in line with recent months.
The report showed that more people were willing to quit, and fewer companies were willing to let people go. That combination is good news for workers and their bargaining power.
Sojourner warned that the JOLTS is a mix of true signal and noise, an estimate based on a survey of a representative sample.
The patterns are what really matter in the labor reports.
And the pattern of a labor market without a lot of churn or growth has been holding up for a while now.
“Headwinds include ongoing affordability challenges, elevated geopolitical risk, disruption associated with artificial intelligence, and lingering impacts from tariffs, all of which can be buzz kills for hiring intentions,” Bankrate Senior Economic Analyst Mark Hamrick said via email.
Another labor market report from the government will be released Friday. That jobs report, officially the Employment Situation Summary, will tell us if American payrolls expanded and by how much in December. It will also offer a fresh unemployment rate and look at wage growth.
And ADP on Wednesday released a report showing private-sector hiring increased by 41,000 in December.
By comparison, last December saw an increase of 176,000 jobs, and the December before that saw an increase of 95,000 jobs.
The ADP data, pulled from its customers’ payrolls, offers a breakdown of 10 industries.
Employment fell by 3,000 among goods-producing industries and increased by 44,000 among service-providing industries.
The growth in the ADP report was led by education and health services.