Many were stunned one month ago when, after several dismal prints, including the worst JOLTS report in almost a year, the BLS reported that in October the US added 372K jobs, the biggest monthly increase since August 2023, and one which most establishment economists jeered - after all Trump was now president so it was fair to finally rugpull the economy - and said would promptly reverse in the next report. Well, the next report just came out, and it was shocker, because after an upward revised October (which makes the 372K increase a 467K surge), the unexpected burst in job openings accelerated in November, when the number of job openings soared to 8.098 million, a 259K surge, and the first 8+ million job openings print since May.
For context, after a year in which there was not one positive 2-month period of gains, in November the BLS reported the biggest 2-month surge in job openings since March 2022!
According to the BLS, the number of job openings increased in professional and business services (+273,000), finance and insurance (+105,000), and private educational services (+38,000) but decreased in information (-89,000).
How realistic is this surge in professional services JOLTS? We don't know, but we know that the 2-month increase in pro services job openings was the largest on record!
In the context of the broader jobs report, in November the number of job openings was 953K more than the number of unemployed workers (which the BLS reported was 7.145 million), up from last month's 855k.
Said otherwise, in July the number of job openings to unemployed was 1.1, a modest increase from last month, but on the low end of the pre-covid range in 2018-2019.
While the job openings data set was an upside shock, where the weakness continued was in the number of hires, which resumed their drop, sliding by 125k to 5.269 million, just shy of the lowest since the covid crash, while the number of quits plunged to a fresh 4 years low of 3.065 million as workers are clearly far less optimistic they can find a higher paying job elsewhere, and would rather be fired than quit.
Finally, no matter what the "data" shows, let's not forget that it is all just estimated, and it is safe to say that the real number of job openings remains still far lower since half of it - or some 70% to be specific - is guesswork. As the BLS itself admits, while the response rate to most of its various labor (and other) surveys has collapsed in recent years, nothing is as bad as the JOLTS report where the actual response rate remains near a record low 33%
