by Olevia Sharbaugh Starkey, Economist at Dodge Construction Network
US job openings data published by The Bureau of Labor Statistics for May showed little movement from last month, rising 2.8% to a seasonally adjusted 8.14 million total openings. Hires and total separations also increased slightly from last month, rising 2.5% and 1.6%, respectively. The total separations increase comes from a rise in both quits (up 0.2% from last month to 3.5 million) and layoffs/discharges (up 7.3% to 1.6 million), as other separations declined from April’s estimate. This is largely good news for the labor market as we went into the Fourth of July festivities, indicating that both US job openings and hiring may be steadying after months of decline. However, the rise in layoffs/discharges will need to be monitored in the coming months to determine if this uptick becomes a trend or is simply an anomaly in the data.
The May estimate for the number of job openings in the construction industry also changed little, increasing by only 2,000 openings from the previous month to 339,000. Hires, on the other hand, bounced up significantly to 383,000 from the 341,000 April estimate. Total separations for the industry also changed little, with the 1.4% increase to 360,000 coming almost entirely from quits as layoffs/discharges declined while other separations increased marginally. This report is encouraging for the construction industry as well, indicating that job openings may have found an equilibrium after falling since February of this year. The sizable increase in hires also comes at a great time, given the increase in the amount of construction projects entering planning over the last few months, as indicated by the Dodge Momentum Index.
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Data Source: https://www.bls.gov/jlt/