The number of job openings declined less than expected in January, indicating that the labor market remains extremely tight.
The Department of Labor said Wednesday that employers had 10.824 million open positions at the end of January, above the expected 10.6 million.
The prior month’s figure was revised up from 11.012 million to 11.234 million, indicating that demand for workers was even higher than previously thought. The data come from the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey, known as JOLTS.
The January report included data revisions to estimates going back to 2018. Nearly every count of job openings in the past year was revised higher. The March 2022 figure was revised to a new record high of 12 million.
The Federal Reserve views the labor market as extremely unbalanced. It is seeking to cool demand for workers by slowing the economy with interest rate hikes in order to bring inflation down. The Labor Department said consumer prices were up 6.4 percent in January compared with a year earlier.
Fed chairman Jerome Powell said on Monday that the unexpectedly strong economic data for January would likely translate into a higher peak for interest rates this year and could push the Fed to hike rates at a faster pace than earlier anticipated. The market now expects the Fed to lift rates by half a percentage point at the March meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, up from the previous expectation of a quarter point hike.
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