Latest / Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update / Open for Business? Job Openings Report | S2 E063 | 07-29-25

Transcript

Open for Business? Job Openings Report | S2 E063 | 07-29-25 · Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update

• 0:00
  Megan Horneman: There's additional evidence that the labor market cracks continue to widen.
• 0:04
  Megan Horneman: Here this is Markets with Megan.
• 0:06
  Megan Horneman: It's July 29th.
• 0:07
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• 0:10
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• 0:11
  Megan Horneman: Also share it with friends, family or colleagues.
• 0:14
  Megan Horneman: But we're out today with additional economic data that we've received.
• 0:18
  Megan Horneman: This one's on the employment market.
• 0:20
  Megan Horneman: This is the JOLTS report and this report is for the month of June and this measures the amount of job openings that are out in the economy.
• 0:28
  Megan Horneman: The job openings actually fell from the prior month.
• 0:33
  Megan Horneman: It dropped for the first time we've seen in actually three months.
• 0:36
  Megan Horneman: It dropped by 275,000 jobs.
• 0:38
  Megan Horneman: But when we look at 7.4 million job openings out there, that is slightly more than the amount of people that are unemployed.
• 0:49
  Megan Horneman: There's about 422,000 more openings than there are Americans that are unemployed, but we are approaching that equilibrium ratio of 1.1.
• 0:59
  Megan Horneman: So we're basically at 1.06 job openings per US unemployed.
• 1:05
  Megan Horneman: That's good news for the Federal Reserve because they're concerned about that tightness in the labor market and what that means for inflation.
• 1:12
  Megan Horneman: There was also a downward revision to the May numbers as well.
• 1:17
  Megan Horneman: So again, further signs of weakening in the economy when you look at the quits rate.
• 1:22
  Megan Horneman: So this is the amount of people that are leaving their job voluntarily.
• 1:26
  Megan Horneman: Typically that tends to from.
• 1:28
  Megan Horneman: That's actually matches the revised lower number that we saw for the month of May, which is 2%.
• 1:49
  Megan Horneman: So at 2% we're looking at the amount of people that are leaving their jobs voluntarily start to subside.
• 1:58
  Megan Horneman: We're seeing that that matches the sentiment we found in things like the jobs hard to find indicators in some of the different surveys, as well as the increasing amount of time that people are staying unemployed.
• 2:12
  Megan Horneman: This confirms that those weakness in the labor market is starting to pick up.
• 2:19
  Megan Horneman: Those cracks emerging are starting to pick up.
• 2:21
  Megan Horneman: Now, what does this mean for the Federal Reserve?
• 2:23
  Megan Horneman: They'll meet tomorrow and give their indication on I'm sorry make any changes to the Fed funds rate, but right now we don't think it's going to change anything for them for this month.
• 2:33
  Megan Horneman: There are cracks emerging, but it's not substantial enough for the Fed to cut rates this month.
• 2:39
  Megan Horneman: What it means for the month of September is still up in the air.
• 2:43
  Megan Horneman: Keep in mind.
• 2:44
  Megan Horneman: We'll get a jobs report this Friday, august 1st.
• 2:46
  Megan Horneman: That's important because there'll be two more jobs reports before that September meeting and that's really going to solidify whether or not the Fed can cut interest rates in September.
• 2:56
  Megan Horneman: We still think that by their comments they're going to err on the side of caution and they may give it until the next meeting after September before they cut rates, because they want to see a little bit more evidence of what tariffs mean, how much is being passed on to the consumer.
• 3:11
  Megan Horneman: They don't want to be cutting interest rates in an environment where we don't know what's going to happen to inflation and then come back out and have to take a more hawkish tone on interest rates.
• 3:21
  Megan Horneman: That's just not something that's been successful in the past.
• 3:24
  Megan Horneman: So we think they're going to err on the side of caution and September is still not set in stone.
• 3:29
  Megan Horneman: We actually think they might hold off at that September meeting as well.
• 3:32
  Megan Horneman: If you want a history of our podcast, you can go to marketswithmeganfm.
• 3:36
  Megan Horneman: Thank you,