WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The Labor Department said on Tuesday that job openings fell to 8.059 million in April from a downwardly revised 8.355 million in March.
Economists had expected job openings to dip to 8.340 million from the 8.488 million originally reported for the previous month.
Oxford Economics: US Lead Economist Nancy Vanden Houten said the decline in openings signal a slower pace of hiring in the months ahead and with layoffs remaining low, net job growth should continue to be positive.
The unchanged quits rate is at a level that is consistent with ongoing moderation in wage growth, the economist added.
'The Federal Reserve will welcome signs of cooler labor market conditions, but the JOLTS data don't change our view that the Fed will be content to keep interest rates at current levels until September,' Vanden Houten said.
'The labor market remains healthy enough to allow Fed policy decisions to be primarily guided by readings on inflation. April data on inflation were encouraging, but the Fed needs to see more than one month of good data before lowering interest rates.'
Capital Economics: North America economist Thomas Ryan said the April JOLTS data provided further evidence of normalization, with job openings falling further, layoffs still at historically low levels and the leading indicators all pointing to wage growth cooling.
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