The good kind of deteriorating labor market 👍

All of the right metrics are cooling in a 'bad news is good news' way 🤷🏻‍♂️

Job openings, while down, are still very high. (Source: Pexels)

Some metrics in the labor market have tumbled in recent months, while others have been remarkably resilient.

Last week, we learned that the level of job openings fell to 9.59 million in March, down from its March 2022 record-high of 12.02 million.

That means there are about 1.64 job openings per unemployed person, down from its peak of 2.01 a year ago.

This comes as hiring continues at a healthy clip. In April, employers added an impressive 253,000 payrolls as the unemployment rate fell to a 54-year low of 3.4%. Employers have added a whopping 1.14 million jobs since the beginning of the year.

So what gives? Shouldn’t we expect at least some deterioration in hiring and the unemployment rate with job openings coming down so sharply?

Not necessarily.