More job openings were advertised in February than in any month since 2001, but hiring has remained flat throughout the early months of 2015.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that there were 5.1 million openings in February, adjusted for seasonal fluctuations, recorded in its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey released Tuesday morning, up from just under 5 million in January and the most since January 2001.
Hires, however, fell from 4.994 million to 4.916 million in the month, the third straight decrease and another sign that the U.S. labor market recovery may have lost momentum in the winter months of 2015.
Over the past year, job vacancies have spiked by nearly a quarter. Hiring, however, is up by less than 10 percent.
Tuesday’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report contains more detailed gross data on hiring and firing than the monthly jobs report that reports net job growth. It is released one month after the jobs report.
Friday’s jobs report for the month of March raised concerns that the labor market recovery stalled out in early 2015. The economy added only 126,000 payroll jobs in the month, adjusted for seasonal variation, and the previous two months’ job gains were marked down by 69,000.
The weak numbers have raised concerns among policymakers that the U.S. economy did not have enough strength to grow in recent months amid unusually harsh winter weather and a rising dollar crimping exports.
Top policymakers, especially Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen, look to the more specific data in the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for additional clues about underlying trends in the jobs market.
One data point from the report that is watched particularly closely is the number of quits, which are taken as a sign of worker confidence in their job prospects.
Voluntary quits fell from 2.8 million in January to 2.7 million in February, and the quits rate fell from 2 percent to 1.9 percent, a disappointing result. The long-term average for the quit rate is closer to 2.1 percent.
Nevertheless, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey shows that the recovery has made significant progress over the longer run.
In February, there were 1.7 unemployed workers for every advertised job opening, fewer than the 1.8 ratio at the beginning of the recession in December 2007. The ratio was nearly 7 during the depths of the fallout from the financial crisis.
