From the Wall Street Journal this morning:
"U.S. employers pulled back sharply on job openings, while layoffs rose in August, adding to signs the labor market and overall economy are cooling.
"Employers’ total job openings fell 10% in August to a seasonally adjusted 10.1 million from 11.2 million the month before, the Labor Department said Tuesday. The 1.1-million drop in openings is the largest decline since the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, leaving job openings at their lowest level in a year.
"Openings dropped the most in healthcare, retail and other services industries. The decline in openings coincided with an August easing of job growth. Employers added 315,000 jobs that month, compared with 526,000 jobs in July. The figures reflect a labor market that is still strong overall, but lost some steam in August after recovering rapidly from the effects of the pandemic … The high number of job openings and the low unemployment rate - at 3.7% in August - means that it remained relatively easy for people to find work."
- KC's View:
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This is a good thing, especially in the broad economic sense. But if the pendulum shifts back in employers' direction, they need to remember who the essential people were when things got tough. Everybody's goal should to stop the pendulum from swinging wildly, but rather come to a resting place in the middle, where everybody is valued and feels invested in the business's success.
