New Job Openings Dropped 19% During The Week Ending July 5th

As we’ve highlighted over the past few months, we're using our LinkUp job data to track new US job openings, which helps us understand the labor market and the national and local economy.

For the week ending July 5th, job openings on company websites dropped 19%, with declines in all but 2 states.

It’s important to note that it was a holiday week and it’s not surprising that job openings would decline to some extent with people taking time off for the 4th.

On the other hand, the horrific rise in COVID-19 cases in the U.S. in the past month or so, driven entirely by states that opened up way too fast without even the most basic, rational precautions like wearing masks, has resulted in states and businesses now closing things down.

That trend can be seen clearly looking at LinkUp’s 30-day rolling average for total, new, and removed job openings.

We’ll see what happens this week and next when the impact of the July 4th holiday is behind us, but there is no doubt that the recovery in the job market is going to be far slower and more volatile than what some had assumed would be the case in May when labor demand started rising steadily.