still plenty enough to ease financial market fears of a looming recession. Job openings are being closely watched for signs of whether an erosion in business confidence, which has weighed on capital investment, is spilling over to hiring.
A 15-month trade war between the United States and China has hurt business confidence, leading to a retrenchment in business spending and downturn in manufacturing. The trade war has stoked financial market fears of a recession.
"The labour market is slipping a little, but it's not flashing any recession signals yet," said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York. "You can't have a recession with 7 million help wanted signs posted up in factory and store windows around the country."
Job openings, a measure of labor demand, dropped by 123,000 to a seasonally adjusted 7.05 million in August, the lowest level since March 2018, the government said in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS.
Job openings have been trending lower this year since scaling an all-time high of 7.63 million in late 2018. The job openings rate fell to 4.4% in August from 4.5% in July.
There were 47,000 fewer job openings in the information sector in August. Economists said the JOLTS data would be closely monitored for clues as to when the longest economic expansion in history, now in its 11th year, might end.
"Although we only have data for the two prior recessions, on both occasions there was a decline in the job openings rate before the onset of recession," said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics in New York.
Hiring declined by 199,000 jobs to 5.8 million in August, led by decreases in the private sector, which fell by 219,000. Federal government hiring increased by 35,000, likely reflecting recruitment for the 2020 Census. The hiring rate slipped to 3.8% from 3.9% in July.
The decrease in hiring fits in with a declining trend in job growth. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 136,000 jobs in September, down from 168,000 in August, the government reported last Friday. The three-month average gain in private employment fell to 119,000, the smallest since July 2012, from 135,000 in August.
Job growth has averaged 161,000 per month this year, compared to a monthly gain of 223,000 in 2018. Job gains remain above the roughly 100,000 per month needed to keep up with growth in the working-age population. The unemployment rate fell to near a 50-year low of 3.5% in September from 3.7% in August.
There were 1.17 unfilled jobs for every unemployed person in August. With the labor market slowing, the number of workers voluntarily quitting their jobs dropped to 142,000 to 3.5 million in August.
The quits rate fell to 2.3% from 2.4% in July. The quits rate is viewed by policymakers and economists as a measure of job market confidence. Layoffs were little changed in August, with the rate holding at 1.2%.