Job openings fall to lowest level since February 2021

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/job-openings-fall-to-lowest-level-since-february-2021-141149453.html

by belter • 2 years ago

53 55 2 years ago

finance.yahoo.com

mathgradthrow• 2 years ago

Looking at the derivatives of employment in isolation is deceptive

jobseeker9952• 2 years ago

This correlates with my recent experience trying the SWE job market (in the U.S.)

Only offer I got was a lowball. Received a surprising number of rejections on technical interviews. 3-4 rounds is common. The bar today is set significantly higher than it was in past job searches.

Most teams where I work are only hiring for staff and occasionally senior. Overall - not a candidates' market.

tossandthrow11• 2 years ago

Only offer I got was a lowball.

Maybe expectations are unreasonable?

I a high interest environment we will see more compression. Ie. Fewer multiples between the lowest paid people and the highest paid people (median for a role).

mattgreenrocks2• 2 years ago

It's ridiculous when you think about it.

Some companies were throwing money at anyone who knew what a text editor was during Covid. And now they're happy to pretend like they only accept the very best, and use that as an excuse to low-ball/down-level. When it flips to an employee market, don't crow about retention difficulties.

tossandthrow11• 2 years ago

Everyone are trying to find the slightest argument that their mortgage will go down a bit soon and we can continue to see extreme asset price inflation.

Personally, I believe these strong sentiments and beliefs that the market can only go up needs to be reversed before we will see any material change.

jajko• 2 years ago

There are more people in the world, I've been born when population was 5 billion and something, now we're at 8. City centers or good locations remain the same and don't magically expand or spawn out of blue, what is growing is mostly less interesting stuff due to distance to good stuff. You would have to battle hard, really hard, to just counter this force in economy.

This ignores massive push for people moving due to work, so in better places there is exponentially more interested people than space available. Just look at SF or NY is we talk about US.

Plus add strong emotions, most world population simply wants to live in their own, renting is frowned upon, despite ie Switzerland having very low home ownership, population is one of happiest globally and nobody here bats an eye, there are more important matters in our short lives to focus on than gathering as many available resources in some rat races.

tossandthrow11• 2 years ago

I am talking about national median housing prices. Ie. Outliers like SF or NY won't even be visible in these statistics.

(also, I personally am speaking from an EU perspective, where my expressed opinion is the same).

But tell me: are you arguing that we see a general willingness to spend a larger roprtion of disposable income on housing, and that this is a permanent trend (due to the dynamics you emphasize).

thiago_fm3• 2 years ago

That's BS, go to Europe, most cities there makes the US look like a shithole and the population isn't growing.

Not to mention how many people now only want to work from home, making it pointless to live in a big city with HCOL.

People have trouble to understand that shit can't go up forever...

WheatMillington4• 2 years ago

City dwellers really do look down on non-city-dwellers contemptuously, huh? As if we'd all be living in a big city if we just had the opportunity.

heavenlyblue• 2 years ago

London population reached the level of 1940s again only very recently for example so it's not that obvious

csa• 2 years ago

City centers or good locations remain the same and don't magically expand or spawn out of blue

Tokyo would like to say hello. IIRC, it’s the only place in Japan with a net population growth, largely due to people moving in for work.

The situation is dire elsewhere because many people are taking completely absurd and/or selfish stances on development in their locale.

thiago_fm3• 2 years ago

Yep, after 15 years of the market beating records after records, and an incredible amount of money printed and ongoing bubbles not popping by QE, people forget that the market can go down, so the value of their overpriced property.

When they paid $2M for a house in SF 2021, and their whole family is laid-off and nobody is hiring as the economy is going down the drain... good luck on believing that your house that costed maximum 300K to build will still be worth 50% than what it was...

WWLink2• 2 years ago

your house that costed maximum 300K to build

When you buy real estate you're mostly paying for the value of the land. Sometimes I'd even say the land might be worth more if there wasn't already a house on it lol.

WheatMillington4• 2 years ago

When I bought my house in 2009 people thought I was NUTS. In the thick of the GFC, house prices stagnant. Why would you ever buy a house now?! It has tripled in value, and buying a house was by far the best decision I ever made in my life.

mikeyouse3• 2 years ago

To be clear - that 'low level' is 8 million openings which is 4x more than were available post-GFC;

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1otVt

and we're still near historically low unemployment rates;

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1otVI

I know it's trendy to be a doomer these days but sub-4% unemployment rates for over 3 years with high earnings is a pretty good place to be, even if inflation was too high for some of that stretch.

toomuchtodo3• 2 years ago

This is also before the Fed lowers rates, which while not assured in the near term, will happen eventually. Can't fight structural demographics with an imaginary number.

https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch...

tossandthrow11• 2 years ago

Why do you think it will happen inevitably?

verdverm• 2 years ago

Another interesting graph is the %job openings per industry

https://www.bls.gov/charts/job-openings-and-labor-turnover/o...

lowkey• 2 years ago

Tech job market has certainly collapsed. Two data points:

- software engineer job postings are down 70% year/year

- product manager job postings are down 90% over the past 2 years on LinkedIn

mikeyouse3• 2 years ago

Collapsed is a bit dramatic - not sure where your job posting stats are coming from but this is another area the BLS tracks - down from 2021 but still very healthy considering the extremely low unemployment rate:

Jobs: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1oue8

Job openings: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1oudP

spacemadness• 2 years ago

LinkedIn postings being down might be an indicator but you can’t just use that to indicate the market has collapsed.

office_drone• 2 years ago

I found interesting the Ask HN comment counts on who's hiring/wants to be hired:

May 2024: 742 / 422 (1.76)

May 2023: 502 / 366 (1.37)

May 2022: 835 / 274 (3.05)

May 2021: 919 / 235 (3.91)

May 2020: 685 / 324 (2.11)

hn_throwaway_99• 2 years ago

hntrends is a good site for this, https://www.hntrends.com/

Note May 2024 was a 12-month high for job postings. But also note Jan 2024 was a 9 year low.

coffeecloud3• 2 years ago

n = 1 but I'm personally seeing an uptick in recruiter outreach and relevant job postings (producty software eng roles.) I've also been hearing about fewer layoffs or prolonged job searches in my network (my network is mostly experienced devs living in tier 1 tech hub.)

crmd2• 2 years ago

Do these BLS statistics reflect “real” jobs, in the sense of what an average older American thinks a job provides, or are these mostly new economy “jobs”, with poverty wages, no healthcare, retirement funding, etc?

My sense here in NYC is that there is a surplus of minimum wage warehouse, retail, and food delivery level job openings concurrent with a de facto white collar and career-track blue collar hiring freeze.

4death4• 2 years ago

Also in the NYC area. There seems to be a major shortage of blue collar labor: contractors, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, etc. the cost of home renovations is truly staggering due to this lack of supply.

crmd2• 2 years ago

So I work in tech but am pretty well-connected to the trades within my family and friends group. The major shortage in every trade is in helpers and laborers. It’s not the case that they need people with journeyman-level technical skills, are willing to offer lucrative TC, and simply can’t hire for the skill set.

They can’t find unskilled/semiskilled labor willing show up to a job site every day for $25/hr cash. Even 10 years ago this wasn’t a problem. The issue is that nobody wants to offer market-clearing wages and benefits because it cuts into the owners’ distribution.

Job openings fall to lowest level since February 2021

Related Stories