The JOLTS survey from the Department of Labor showed a big jump in job openings in September. Which raised market worries that the Fed will raise interest rates tomorrow, November 2, by a hefty 75 basis points and signal that it is farther away from a pivot toward lowering interest rates than this recent rally has hoped.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed that the number of available positions climbed to 10.7 million in September from a revised 10.3 million in August. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg were looking for a drop to 9.8 million openings.
The ratio of openings to unemployed persons rose in September: there were some 1.9 available jobs for every unemployed person, compared with 1.7 in August. An increase in that ratio is likely to keep upward pressure on wages and inflation. Hires fell to about 6.1 million from 6.3 million a month earlier, suggesting businesses are having trouble filling open positions.
This data is somewhat dated, of course. Friday’s monthly jobs report–for October–is projected to show that the economy added a relatively weak 190,000 jobs in that month. Economists are projecting that the official unemployment rate will move up slightly to 3.6%.
At the close. on November 1, the Standard & Poor’s 500 was down -0.41%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had lost 0.24%. The NASDAQ Composite was off 0.89%. But the small-cap Russell 2000 index was ahead by 0.25%.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury was steady at 4.05%.
