There were 3.0 million job openings on the last business day of April, essentially unchanged from the March level. The job openings rate (2.2 percent), hires rate (3.0 percent) and separations rate (2.9 percent) were essentially unchanged in April.
The number buttresses the May unemployment data and supports the theory that job creation by the US economy has stalled. The ripple effects of the problems are already known because they have been obvious for three years. Home prices, unemployment, and consumer spending are all parts of the same GDP machine. That machine has come to a halt again.
The $787 billion stimulus package that was supposed to rekindle growth has not done so. President Obama said, as he signed the legislation to implement the program that “We have begun the essential work of keeping the American dream alive in our time.” There is a strong case to be made that no one, even the president, was and is capable of righting the damage to the economy any time soon.
The BLS data will give economists who want a new stimulus program ammunition. The ammunition will not do much. The movement to cut government expenditures is too popular with voters–as long as it does not hurt them individually. That makes the odds that the next BLS report, for May, will look like the ones for April and March.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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