The Federal Reserve is trying to slow the economy. Its decisions hinge on how accurately it understands what’s happening.
of vacancy data. “But vacancies are showing an especially strong labor market. So if the Fed is relying too much on this one indicator, it’s going to tell them to tighten more than they otherwise would, and I think that’s extremely risky.”Even as businesses stare down a slowing economy, it’s unclear what would finally push them to nix their openings. At Basic Fun! toys in Boca Raton, Fla.
That counts job openings with an employer who is actively recruiting to fill a position where the work could begin within 30 days. There, too, job postings are high, and remain about 55 percent above February 2020, the last month before the pandemic swept across the country. But after a spike in postings throughout 2020 and 2021, the numbers are slowly easing up. Openings in customer service, arts and entertaining, accounting, insurance, sales and IT operations have all ticked down, according to the Indeed Hiring LabThe data shouldn’t be too far off, in broad strokes.
“One should take job openings seriously, but not literally, and I think that’s a good way to think about it,” Pollak said. “Ten million openings, or 20 million online postings, does not necessarily mean that’s the number of vacancies available right that minute. But it is a very important measure of hiring sentiment, and also of recruitment intensity.”