With Wall Street on Edge about the job report on Friday for August – the first since the shock of July, which included a massive revision of the drop in job growth for May and June – he had another shock on Wednesday. The JOLTS survey, a closely viewed indicator of job offers and stops, has confirmed that the American economy now has the least job opening in almost a year, a clear sign that the hiring of the momentum continues to cool.
Job offers for July have slipped significantly to 7.18 million, down compared to 7.36 million June (revised downward) and much lower than consensual expectations. The rate of openings also increased to 4.3% as companies reduce recruitment as part of increasing economic uncertainty. The most affected industries include health care, arts and leisure and mining, while regional drops were led by the south and northeast.
Markets Eye Friday’s Jobs Data
This lowest report of Jols comes as investors are preparing for the monthly employment update, a critical catalyst in the fixing of the tone to the federal reserve policy and the feeling of the market. Earlier Wednesday, Bank of America’s research analysts warned that the American labor market slowed down due to supply factors, including immigration restrictions, which have attenuated the pace of hiring and unemployment raised slightly since earlier this year.
The shares fell on Tuesday to open trade for the month of September, after the labor holidays, followed by a world bond sale Wednesday morning before the release of Jolts. Other evidence of investors fleeing security were gold with a record. The Swiss Investment Bank UBS argued Tuesday that September is a seasonal seasonal month for stocks, noting that September has been the least efficient month of the S&P 500 in the past decade, with average yields of approximately -2%. Over the past six of the last 10 years, the index has decreased, he added.
From its global economic perspectives, the Bofa continued to project a “slight stagflation” environment in the United States for the rest of 2025, the softness of the labor market mainly reflecting the shocks of supply rather than the collapse of demand. “The American labor market slows down,” said the bank, “even if we think that it is mainly motivated by a history on the supply side.”
Recent payroll revisions and slower growth of jobs suggest that the market is delighted, according to Bofa, with average monthly employment lower than the pre-parasal trend. The Bofa provides that the unemployment rate goes higher until the end of the year, which represents between 4.2% to 4.4% in the coming quarters, and warns that the labor sector remains key economic risk. In other words, Jolts has just added a significant weight to a crucial part of the Bofa thesis.
Fed Policy and Economic Perspectives
The slowdown in July Jols strengthens Bofa’s warning that the federal reserve is exposed to a possible policy error if it reduces rates too early, given persistent inflation and a stall labor market. Political decision -makers are now confronted with a difficult balancing act, as supply -ordered constraints reduce the pace of balance for employment growth, by amplifying the risk that the job report on Friday could stimulate financial volatility and a change in the expectations of monetary policy. Furthermore, Bofa warned that it was rare that the Fed will drop the rates in the context of the increase in inflation, and the last time it did it, it was shortly before the major financial crisis of 2008.
The chief economist of the global management of Apollo, Torsten Sløk, speculated earlier in the week that the economy could go towards a “mountain of inflation” which recalls the tip of inflation of the early 1980s. On Wednesday, before the report of Jols, Sløk questioned several economic indicators and concluded that they suggest that “the labor market will continue to weaken”. He noted that the current reading of small businesses saying that they are undergoing bad sales suggest that the unemployment rate could increase in the coming months, while consumer feelings concerning the labor market prospects also suggest slowing down employment growth. He said that this historical relationship would suggest that the Friday job report could be less than 90,000 expected by consensus.
In short, the JOLTS in July confirm the slowest labor market for some time – extremely as the Bofa had predicted it – while the markets nervously await the next key jobs to see if this cooling trend continues.
For this story, Fortune Used a generative AI to help an initial project. An editor checked the accuracy of the information before the publication.
