LinkUp's May Jobs Data Points To Slowing Job Market

For the 2nd month in a row, new job openings on LinkUp declined from the previous month and total jobs were essentially flat, pointing to a job market that might be starting to slow down to some degree. Based on April’s job data from LinkUp, we are forecasting a net gain of just 160,000 jobs for tomorrow’s non-farm payroll (NFP) report from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of labor Statistics.

And based on LinkUp’s May data, our preliminary forecast for June’s NFP report is a net gain of just 110,000. We will revise that forecast after the BLS releases its jobs report for May tomorrow morning, but whatever May’s number turns out to be, we are projecting that June’s non-farm payroll number will be lower by roughly 50,000 jobs.

Additionally, LinkUp’s Job Duration report indicates that employers are facing continued difficulty in filling jobs quickly in today’s full-employment environment where applicants are hard to come by. Although May’s Job Duration dropped slightly from last month, it is still taking employers an average of 53 days to fill open positions.

So based on the past few months of LinkUp data, combined with what the current administration did even just today with the Paris climate agreement (not to mention what he has done virtually every day since he took office) to absolutely destroy job growth in the future, it’s pretty safe to say that the best days of the post-Great Recession recovery will soon be viewed in the rearview mirror.