By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- The number of layoffs across the U.S. economy hit an all-time low in April, as companies hoarded labor to cope with the upswing in the economy after the end of the wave of Omicron-wave COVID-19 over the winter.
The Labor Department said that layoffs fell by 170,000 to a series low of 1.2 million in the month, with the sharpest drops coming in professional and business services.
The monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey also showed the number of vacancies across the U.S. stayed close to record highs at 11.40 million in April, although that was down clearly from the record 11.85 million seen in March. That means that there are over 1.5 job vacancies for every person included under the Labor Department's 'U6' measure of unemployment, which also captures those underemployed.
The Labor Department said that the number of people quitting their jobs stayed roughly stable in the month at 4.4 million. The 'quit rate' which has risen in recent months as workers have used the tightness of the labor market to negotiate jobs at higher pay with new employers, stayed unchanged at 2.9%.
The quit rate has assumed increased importance in recent months in the considerations of the Federal Reserve, which has voiced concern about the 'frothiness' of the nationwide labor market.
The report comes two days before the release of the official labor market report for May. Analysts expect another 325,000 nonfarm jobs to have been created last month, taking the jobless rate down to 3.5%, which would match its level of March 2020 at the start of the pandemic.