5,900,000 Job Openings!

 

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Today the JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary) data was reported showing a whopping cycle high of 5,900,000 job openings. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm

You may also have heard growling from our economic bears saying that 94 million Americans are out of  work. To them, I always ask this question: “Where on JOLTS chart does it show that we lost 94,000,000 people from the job market?”  The answers I have received are more suited for a conversation between the Joker and Batman then in an economics discussion.  In this cycle, prime age labor force growth peaked in 2007, then declined and its only slowing growing again. We are very young and very old in this cycle, unlike the 1980’s and 1990’s where demographics were much better. So although we may have a large number of Americans out of workforce, they are largely composed of the those too young to work, ( Ages 16-24) those who have since retired, those who are on disability , women who choose not to work for their kids and people attending college .  The widening the gap between job openings and hires tells the story.   We currently have more job openings then we can hire for.

From Calculated Risk:
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2016/09/bls-job-openings-increased-in-july-to.html

joltsjuly2016

Here is another chart that shows how silly the thesis is that we have 94 million Americans out of work.  There is nothing in this data that supports a job loss of that magnitude. Our current total population is running a tad over 324,000,000.

Critical thinking, people! Come on!

http://www.census.gov/popclock/?intcmp=home_pop

From Doug Short
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/

Ratio of US unemployed workers to job openings falls further below average level during 2006-2007 boom years

jolts-2
From Doug Short

http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/JOLTS-and-the-Business-Cycle
jolts-layoffs-1-22

Job openings are pretty much in every sector.

Construction
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTS2300JOR

construction

Government
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTS9000JOL
government-jobs

The trend has stayed the same in all sectors for some time now, but today’s print of 5,900,000 shows that we have a real first world problem. We need labor!

BO MAN JOLTS
Additionally, for the job jumper, we see wage inflation data as well .
4-2

We now have 155 million working Americans, a 43 year low in unemployment claims and job openings standing at 5,900,000.

#USA

<> on June 17, 2014 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
<> on June 17, 2014 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Logan Mohtashami is a senior loan officer at AMC Lending Group,  which has been providing mortgage services for California residents since 1987. Logan also tracks all economic data  daily on his own facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Logan.Mohtashami