Tuesday, July 11, 2017

JOLTS and Labor Market Conditions Index: for once, a good report


 - by New Deal democrat

Usually I am the lone Debbie Downer when it comes to the JOLTS report, mainly because I think there is way too much attention paid to the "soft" openings data vs. the "hard" hires and quits numbers.

Well, in this morning's report on May, it was the "hard" data that was better.

As I usually do, first here are openings (blue) vs. hires (red):



Openings declined to back within their 2 year range, while hires rose to the top of their 2 yeear range.

On a YoY basis, both were positive, although not by much:



The best news of all was quits, which made a new record high:



Yesterday's Labor Market Conditions Index for May wasn't too shabby either:



While it wasn't as high as the last few months, it remained positive, and since it shows promise as a long leading indicator, that's a good thing.

My overall take remains that we are late in the cycle, but the coincident data is still pretty positive, and there is no imminent problem in sight.