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US job openings ticked up to a five-month high in October, signalling to the Federal Reserve ahead of Wednesday’s interest rate decision that the domestic labour market is stabilising.
Job openings advertised by US employers — widely considered to be a proxy for labour demand — tallied 7.67mn during the month, the labour department said on Tuesday, up from 7.66mn in September.
The two monthly figures marked the first Job Openings and Labor Turnover reports since the 43-day federal government shutdown delayed and cancelled several economic data releases, prompting investors and economists to seek private-sector statistics to gauge the health of the world’s largest economy.
October’s figure surpassed economists’ expectations of 7.11mn roles, according to a Bloomberg survey. Openings for workers in healthcare and retail trade drove the increase.
The higher than expected openings number comes amid heightened concerns about the health of the US economy. Investors and economists had feared the labour market had deteriorated beyond its “low hire, low fire” state, a situation where the unemployment rate remains historically low but those out of work are finding it tough to land a new job.
Matthew Martin, senior US economist at Oxford Economics, said: “The data is unlikely to prevent the Federal Reserve from following through with a rate cut later this week, but it does support our assumption that officials will opt for an extended pause due to signs of labour market stabilisation.”
Economists expect the Fed to cut rates by a quarter point on Wednesday to help prop up the labour market, but with inflation above the bank’s target rate, policymakers and investors remain divided on the outlook for monetary policy in 2026.
The two-year Treasury yield, which shifts with changes in monetary policy expectations, was up 0.03 percentage points at 3.61 per cent in afternoon dealings. The S&P 500 was up 0.1 per cent.
Nicole Bachaud, a labour economist at jobs site ZipRecruiter, called the increase in job openings “a welcomed refresh to a stale labour market with rising unemployment”.
“If this trend continues, employers can expect to see a tighter labour market ahead in 2026 as the labour force continues to retract, and negotiating power is handed back to workers,” she said.
Despite the increase in job openings, employers have been slow to fill those roles. Hirings dropped by 218,000 to 5.149mn in October. The number of workers who quit their jobs — the economists’ preferred measure of workers’ confidence in the labour market — fell slightly to 1.8 per cent. That is the lowest level in more than five years, indicating some stagnation.
Lay-offs also rose 4 per cent to 1.9mn with high-profile workforce reductions at companies including Amazon, Paramount, United Parcel Service and Target.
The labour department will release its delayed non-farm payrolls data for November next Tuesday.
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