U.S. job openings hit 11.2 million in July as labor market shows no signs of cooling

Yahoo Finance's Akiko Fujita and Brian Cheung discuss the latest economic data.

Video Transcript

- Again, a flurry of information coming in as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that American companies sought to fill more job postings between June and July. With 11.2 million job openings, labor market showing no signs of cooling as workers continue to have broad options for jobs. And the Conference Board also reporting consumer confidence at 10:00 AM as well for August, rising to 103.2. The highest level since May. And Akiko, all of these things put together show you that at least as of the lagged information in July and August, no slowing of this American economy at least so far.

AKIKO FUJITA: No slowing. And of course, the concern there is that with the broader picture on inflation, that employers are still having to compete with fewer number of talent in the market, obviously having to pay up more. So that's a big concern on that front. I mean, consumer confidence though, going up, right?

- Yeah, well, I mean, on one hand, that's good, because I mean, who doesn't want to see a strong consumer? But at the same time, if it's a strong consumer that's continuing to spend a lot into the economy, that demand pressure on inflation shows that the Fed's job on lowering the pace of price increases is far from done. And I think that that's maybe one reason why you're seeing that a little bit of a sour reaction in the markets today. It's an extension of what we already heard from the Fed, that they're going to continue to raise interest rates.

Maybe the data we got this morning reinforces the view that they have to be even more aggressive.

AKIKO FUJITA: Obviously, all of this in the context of what's about to come. On Friday, a lot of people are going to be looking to that jobs number. And I guess the question here is, are we seeing any impact from those rate hikes coming through from the Fed. The expectation, or the hope has been, right, that you could kind of slow down things in the labor market. Obviously, as we said yesterday, we don't want unemployment to tick up much higher. But the reality is that's going to have to happen in order to bring inflation down.

If you look at the numbers today, that shows that the demand for hiring is still really strong.

- Yeah, absolutely. And for what it's worth, it's still a laborer's market, right? The amount of quits essentially hasn't really ticked down. People have options with that many job postings out there. But it's important to note that this is not the highest frequency data, right? The JOLTS data comes in on a significant lag. So that covers the month of July, not the month of August.

And even consumer confidence, that's backward looking as well. Not by as much, but it does cover the month of August. But of course, we'll have to see what the jobs number on Friday says. And of course, we'll get the read on the data from this morning later on with the Richmond Fed President. Tom Barkin is going to stop by the show around 11:30.