United States
If one is looking for a job, it’s out there. It just may not be exactly what is wanted. In April, job openings totaled 6.04mm, almost 300k more than expected and that is a record high (not adjusted for population). While that is up by 259k from March, the supply of labor is just not there as hirings fell by 253k and the hiring rate was down by one tenth to 3.5%, matching the lowest since April 2014. We saw a decline in the number of quitters, giving back the rise in March and the quit rate fell one tenth to 2.1% and remains in a tight range of 2-2.2%.
Notable job opening increases were in construction, finance/insurance and hospitality. Job openings in manufacturing fell to a 4 month low.
Bottom line, the story remains the same in that the supply of labor is not meeting the demands. This of course has not led to faster wage growth so as to entice more supply to come off the sidelines but we still wonder how long this will last. In addition to the lack of productivity in this economic cycle, we can add this dearth of labor supply as another limiting factor on growth. This is late cycle stuff and no wonder why the yield curve spread continues to shrink.
Peter is the Chief Investment Officer at Bleakley Advisory Group and is a CNBC contributor.