US Job Openings Slide to 6-Month Low, Layoffs Fall

The U.S. labor market remains solid while many employers take a wait-and-see approach to see how tariffs play out.

A hiring sign at the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City shopping mall in Arlington, Va., on Jan 3, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Job vacancies declined sharply in March, but little change in new hires and layoffs signals that the U.S. labor market remains solid.

The number of job openings tumbled by 288,000, to 7.192 million, the lowest in six months, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Last month’s number fell short of the consensus forecast of 7.48 million.

Data indicate that the decrease in employment opportunities was broad-based, led by transportation, warehousing, and utilities (negative 59,000), accommodation and food services (negative 42,000), and construction (negative 38,000).

Employment vacancies in the federal government also fell by 36,000.

While the number of job openings has steadily declined since reaching the March 2022 peak of 12.1 million, other JOLTS metrics indicate the national labor market is intact.

Job quits—a measure economists use to determine workers’ confidence in finding a new position—increased by 82,000, to an eight-month high of 3.25 million.

New hires were unchanged at 5.4 million, indicating employers are reluctant to expand their payrolls.

Layoffs and discharges fell to 1.6 million, led by the retail trade (negative 66,000) and the federal government (negative 11,000).

Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst at Bankrate, says the JOLTS report figures were compiled before President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plans, so the latest labor dataset could suffer from a lagging effect.

“So, it runs the risk of being somewhat less meaningful given the level of volatility and uncertainty surrounding the economy,” Hamrick said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

According to the latest Federal Reserve Beige Book, which characterizes the change in economic conditions since the last report, many companies have adopted a “wait-and-see” approach to their staffing plans in the current economic climate.

Meanwhile, data from the April Freedom Economy Index report by RedBalloon and PublicSquare show that 48 percent of small businesses are more supportive of tariffs.

“It may be hard for a while but we need to do something before America goes bankrupt. This should have been done decades ago,” one small business owner said in the monthly survey.

Other indicators, meanwhile, could present a snapshot of the broader U.S. labor market.

Jobs, Layoffs, and Tariffs

This week’s main event will be the April jobs report on May 2. Economists anticipate the U.S. economy created 130,000 new jobs and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.2 percent.

“We acknowledge the high degree of economic uncertainty heading into the forthcoming April employment report, and beyond,” Hamrick said. “That’s another way of saying that we shouldn’t be shocked by a surprise in the data. Still, expectations are worth noting.”

Market watchers will also monitor payroll processor ADP’s National Employment Report. Early estimates suggest the private sector added 108,000 new jobs last month.

Global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas will report on U.S.-based employers’ planned job cuts. In March, employers announced 275,240 layoffs, the third-highest monthly total on record. The sizable figures were attributed to the Trump administration’s plans to cut federal spending and downsize the government workforce.

Meanwhile, jobless claims, a weekly gauge of the job market, have been stable. Last week, initial and continuing unemployment claims hovered around their two-month lows.

“The fact that unemployment has remained relatively low despite a significant decline in job openings is unprecedented,” said Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, in a note. “Unfortunately, however impressive that past performance might have been, it is no guarantee of future labor market resilience.”

In a separate Bureau of Labor Statistics report, unemployment rates were higher in March than the previous year in 279 of the 387 metropolitan areas. In addition, jobless rates were lower in 72 areas and unchanged in 36.

Economic observers have expected seismic shifts in the U.S. labor market because of the new administration’s cost-cutting efforts and policy changes, and these concerns have yet to appear in the hard data. Some say data in the coming months should present a clearer picture of how Trump’s trade agenda is affecting the economic landscape.

The first-quarter GDP growth rate will be released on April 30. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s GDPNow Model estimate, the U.S. economy contracted 1.5 percent after adjusting for gold imports and exports.

Paul Ashworth, the chief North America economist at Capital Economics, says a spike in imports dragged down first-quarter growth, which could reverse in the current quarter.

“The reversal of that surge will have an offsetting effect in the second quarter, boosting growth to more than 2% annualised. Over the rest of 2025 and throughout 2026, however, we expect quarterly growth to slow to around 1.5% annualised,” Ashworth said in the Q2 2025 US Economic Outlook report.

As the administration celebrates Trump’s first 100 days in the Oval Office, Siebert Financial CIO Mark Malek says observing the next 100 days is crucial.

“For the most part, I think we’ve seen the worst. We’ve seen the extremes, in terms of the downside. I think markets now are having a much more positive bend on what’s going to be happening in the next 100 days,” Malek said in a note emailed to The Epoch Times.