I saw on Friday that labor force participation in April dropped from 62.4% to 62%. This is the % of our population either looking for work or working.
Biden didn't give out any new stimulus that I'm aware of so it is most likely retirements. Today I found the actual #: 363,000.
It's important to note that the Feds are raising the interest rate to make it more expensive for companies to borrow. This should automatically reduce the # of job openings. The goal is to have less job openings so people cannot partake in the Great Resignation and so people cannot get raises, which is driving inflation.
Some math. 11,500,000 job openings. The 2nd article quotes at saying the gov't needs to eliminate roughly 38%, or 4.3M jobs. That' is what the gov't is trying to do.
However if the 363k that left the workforce is retirements it will take roughly 12 months to create another 4.3M jobs, as companies need to replace the retirees.
This can be offset somewhat by immigration and automation, but I doubt completely. This is also contingent on the 363k # staying consistent and it is only 1 month but it is something to keep a very close eye on.
We should see an uptick in participation when high school Seniors graduate. Keep that in mind as well.
“The US labor force participation rate fell to 62.2% from 62.4% as 363,000 left the workforce last month alone. “
“Colas noted that there are 11.5 million job openings in the U.S. and 5.9 million unemployed workers, meaning that there would still be 5.1 million openings if every unemployed individual were to be hired to a position.
Ultimately, Colas believes that the Fed would like to see the labor market return to its late-2010s job openings to unemployed workers ratio of 1.2x. However, this would require American businesses to remove around 38% of current job listings, if the number of unemployed workers remains constant.”