The number of job openings fell for the third month in a row in June, although it is still high.
Openings across all sectors dropped to 10.7 million in June, down from 11.3 million the month before, according to data released on Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The previous record number of job openings was notched in March, which was upwardly revised to 11.9 million.
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The largest decreases in job openings were in retail trade, wholesale trade, and state and local government education.
“The labor market may be cooling off, but the temperature decline is far from a plunge,” said Nick Bunker, Indeed Hiring Lab director of economic research. “Demand for new workers remains robust, layoff rates are very low, and workers continue to quit their jobs at high rates. The labor market is loosening a bit, but by any standard, it is still quite tight.”
The numbers come as the Federal Reserve keeps jacking up interest rates more aggressively and tightening its monetary policy to combat explosive inflation. The central bank raised rates by a half percentage point in May and then took the even more aggressive step of hiking rates by three-fourths of a percentage point in June — the most ambitious upward hike since 1994.
The Fed then conducted another massive 75 basis point hike following its July meeting, which means that the central bank has essentially hiked rates six times on a conventional basis in just the past two months alone.
The Fed’s action is designed to slow spending and eventually drive down prices. Some economists have argued that the Fed isn’t moving fast enough and point to hot spots in the economy, such as the still high number of job openings, as evidence. Some Fed watchers had expected the central bank to conduct an even more aggressive full percentage point hike last month.
Wednesday’s report also showed that the rate of people quitting their jobs was little changed from the month before.
Layoffs were at 1.3 million, which shows employers are desperate to hang on to workers in the tight labor market environment.
Still, many economists fear that a recession is on the horizon or has already arrived at the country’s doorstep.
U.S. GDP fell at a 0.9% annualized rate in the second quarter, a preliminary estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis last week showed. The report marks the second straight quarter of declining inflation-adjusted GDP — a situation commonly used to define a recession. GDP tumbled at a 1.6% rate in the first quarter.
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Government officials and economists use recession designations provided by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private academic group. The bureau doesn’t provide a narrow statutory definition to declare a recession. Rather, it relies on the judgment of a group of economists.
The group broadly defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and that lasts more than a few months.”
