Thursday, September 14, 2017
Record Level of Job Openings Doesn’t Mean the Labor Market is Tight
A record-high level of job openings might overstate tightness in the labor market.
There were 6.17 million job openings at the end of July, up by nearly 200,000 from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Tuesday. Openings during the month touched another record high. The figure has been at or near the highest level on record back to 2000 for the past two years.
But the large number of available positions doesn’t mean the labor market is necessarily tighter than the late days of the tech-boom or last decade’s housing-fueled expansion. . .