U.S. Job Openings Were Elevated Before Virus Spurred Layoffs

(C) Bloomberg. A pedestrian walks past a closed store on Fordham Road in the Bronx borough of New York on April 2. Photographer: David Dee Delgado/Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) — U.S. job openings remained elevated in February, offering little more than a benchmark of labor market strength prior to an unprecedented surge in layoffs due to the coronavirus.

The number of available positions eased to 6.88 million from an upwardly revised 7.01 million in January, according to the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, released Tuesday. That compares with a median forecast for a decline to 6.5 million.

The figures provide insight into the extent of demand for workers before millions of Americans were laid off from their jobs as businesses closed during the national health emergency. Job openings have since likely plummeted as the pandemic eroded a vibrant labor market.

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• The total number of openings exceeded the number of unemployed Americans in February by more than a million, but that gap has probably since closed as layoffs have surged.
• The figures lag a month behind the Labor Department’s jobs report, which showed employers cut 701,000 jobs in March, the most since 2009. Even that figure is dated, as it represents job losses in the first half of the month before many of the stay-at-home orders went into effect across the country.
• Hires, separations and quits were relatively steady from the previous month.

(C)2020 Bloomberg L.P.