The economy continues to create jobs, but there’s still a long way to go to catch up to pre-pandemic peaks.
By Manuel Gutierrez, Consulting Economist to NKBA
The number of job openings increased by 10% in July, the third consecutive month of gains. There are currently 6.6 million job openings in the U.S. In the same month, the number of unemployed fell to 16.3 million, down from the 23.1 million three months earlier, during April’s pandemic-fueled highs.
While historically the number of unemployed has exceeded the number of jobs available, the situation reversed itself early in 2018 and continued into 2019, when there were actually more job openings than people seeking work. This was a sign of strength of the economic recovery and the number of jobs steadily created after the Great Recession of 2007-2009, as positive policies were enacted to support U.S. businesses in general and manufacturing in particular.
In 2010, there were over 15 million people unemployed, with just 2.8 million job openings. In the decade of recovery leading to January 2020, a strong U.S. economy had generated enough jobs to absorb more than 9 million unemployed workers. This was in addition to growth that was able to employ millions of new entrants into the labor force, such as graduating students seeking their first job.
However, the employment situation again reversed in March, as the pandemic brought most U.S. businesses to a halt. The number of unemployed spiked to over 23 million in April, as illustrated by the vertical red line in the top chart above. At the same time, the number of job openings dried up, to just 5 million.
Since then, there has been a steady employment improvement through July, reducing the gap to 9.7 million more unemployed than job availabilities, a sharp improvement from the gap of 18 million in April. The situation is expected to continue to improve, although it’s doubtful parity will be reached any time soon between those seeking employment and job openings.
Trade & Transportation lead all industries in number of current openings. Nearly one in five (19.5%) of the openings are in this sector even though the sector represents only 4% of all jobs.
Professional Business and Health & Social services have the second and third highest number of openings, respectively. Professional Business services accounts for 18.1% of all openings, while Social services is at 17.3%.
The only sector within the kitchen and bath industry for which openings data are available is Construction, which represents 5% of all job openings, as well as 5% of all jobs.
