This morning’s JOLTS report for November continued the same trend of labor market deceleration that we have seen since the blazing hot boom of 2021.Job openings declined -62,000 to 8.790 million, the lowest level since March 2021. Actual hires fell sharply, by -363,000 to 5.465 million, the lowest since the pandemic lockdown month of April 2020. Quits declined by -157,000 to 3.471 million, the lowest since February 2021. The below graph norms each to 100 as of right before the onset of the pandemic: 
Both hires and quits are actually *lower* than before the pandemic. While this isn’t recessionary, it points to the normalization of each metric at very least. Since openings are a “soft” number that can be influenced by phantom postings, I discount them somewhat, except for their value in showing the trend.The good news in November was that layoffs also declined sharply, by -116,000 to 1.527 million. This is in accord with the decline in weekly initial jobless claims we have recently seen: 
Finally, four months ago I premiered a comparison of the quits rate (blue in the graph below) and average hourly earnings (red). This is because the former has a 20+ year history of leading the latter, which I have in the past described as a “long lagging” indicator that turns well after most other metrics. Here’s the update on that comparison for this month: 
As noted above, we had a big decline in quits in November. While this may in part be a seasonal adjustment issue post-pandemic, it does point to a continued softening in the YoY% gains we can expect in average hourly wages in the months ahead.So: simply put – more deceleration, but still positive vs. recessionary.More By This Author:Construction Spending Continued To Increase In November Final COVID-19 Update For 2023: Mainly Good News The Economic Graph Of The Year For 2023
