Nothing brings Wall Street together quite like the shared joy of watching the US labor market get curb-stomped…

In case you missed it, job openings in the U.S. just slipped to their lowest in 10 months, 7.18 million in July, and for the first time in four years there are officially more unemployed people than jobs to fill. Meaning, that sound you hear is the “strong labor market” narrative getting body-bagged. What’s left is employers pulling job postings like they’re allergic to payroll, and workers realizing the game of musical chairs is ending with fewer chairs.

(Source: Giphy) 

The drop came from sectors that were supposed to be bulletproof… health care, retail, and leisure. Vacancies in health care, the one area holding up payrolls this year, fell to their weakest level since 2021. Translation: the backbone of job creation is wobbling, and if that cracks, there isn’t much left keeping employment growth positive.

(Source: Axios) 

Additionally, revisions to prior data made the picture even worse. June’s job openings were revised down by 80,000, while layoffs and discharges were revised up by nearly 200,000. Which is an adjustment that screams companies are quietly cutting more than they admit on the first pass. Same story with payrolls: earlier jobs reports for May and June were quietly revised down, which means the “resilient labor market” has basically been a mirage built on bad first drafts. Whereas now, the ratio of job openings to unemployed workers (a.k.a, the Fed’s favorite “balance of supply and demand” stat) is now one-to-on. At the peak of the post-pandemic boom in 2022, it was two-to-one. That entire cushion is gone. The quit rate is stuck at 2%, meaning workers aren’t leaving jobs because they know better… and there aren’t greener pastures waiting. (Sorry, Conoco peeps). 

(Source: Giphy) 

So, why no market panic upon the news yesterday? Because it’s a sign that we have a September rate cut in the bag. But the substance is ugly… job demand is sliding, layoffs are quietly stacking up, and even “acyclical” sectors like state and local government or health care are slowing. If those roll over, it’s hard to see where the hiring floor is.

With that said, all of this lands right before the August jobs report on Friday… the real stress test. If payroll growth shows more weakness, it locks in the case for a cut. If it gets revised downward again, it confirms the slowdown is deeper than the headlines suggest. Either way, the labor market isn’t the inflation boogeyman anymore… it’s looking more like a liability the Fed has to babysit.

(Source: Giphy) 

In the end though, the numbers don’t technically scream collapse, but they do confirm what workers already feel: it’s getting harder to find a job, harder to leave one, and the illusion of endless openings has vanished. So given this, don’t piss off your boss today and place your bets accordingly. Until next time, friends…

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News does not hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.