The U.S. job market may be cooling off.
The Labor Department said Tuesday that U.S. employers posted 8.7 million job openings in October. That’s the lowest total since March 2021, a total down significantly from the 9.4 million jobs they posted in September.
Layoffs were up modestly in October, the Labor Department said, and the number of Americans who quit their jobs was down slightly.
Healthycare and social assistance were hit particularly hard, with job openings dropping by 236,000, according to a report from The Associated Press. The finance industry, which includes banking, insurance and real estate and which has been hit particularly hard by higher interest rates, were down 217,000 openings; and hotels, restaurants and bars, fell by 124,000, the AP reported.
Despite the drop, job openings remain at historically high levels, having topped 8 million for 32 straight months. That’s a level that had never been reached before 2021.
Employers have added 239,000 jobs a month this year, keeping the unemployment rate below 4% for 21 straight months, the longest such streak since the 1960s, according to the AP.
The Labor Department was set to issue the November jobs report on Friday, which economists expect to show employers added nearly 173,000 jobs last month. That would be up from 150,000 in October, in part because of the end of strikes by autoworkers and Hollywood writers and actors, according to the AP. The unemployment rate is expected to have remained at 3.9%, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet.
