Job openings are trending downward. Why that's good.

For a long time, job openings far exceeded the number of people actually looking for work. That's changing. 

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A gentle JOLT?
Welcome to the Know the Difference Minute for Tuesday, August 1st.
The first week of the month is typically when we get a deluge of data, from purchasing manager indexes to the employment situation report. Today we got the job openings and labor turnover statistics report, commonly referred to as JOLTS.
This report was a source of stress for a long time as job openings far exceeded the number of people actually looking for work. The Fed had been taking that as an indicator that the labor market was too hot to handle and that they’d have to do more to tame inflation. In hindsight, that’s proved to be wrong as lots of job openings wasn’t a big driver of inflation.
Today’s numbers showed job openings falling a bit. In March 2022 there were two jobs open for every person unemployed. Now there are 1.6. It’s a gentle JOLT in the right direction.
I’m Brian Jacobsen, Chief Economist at Annex Wealth Management. That is your Know the Difference Minute.