Jobs declined as 2020 approached, with the biggest hit for the battered hospitality industry as the Covid pandemic rose.
The total number of positions opened decreased by 105,000 in November, a decrease of 1.6% compared to October and a decrease of 3.9% compared to a year earlier, according to the Labor Department’s work survey and turnover survey released Tuesday.
Recreation and hospitality in particular suffered a severe blow, with a shift in jobs and a sharp increase in layoffs and overall separations.
Although the report runs a month behind the department’s non-farming score, the JOLTS score is being monitored by policymakers for indications of labor market tightness.
In total, there were 6.63 million openings for the month, compared to the 10.74 million workers the government considers unemployed. The net wage gain of 336,000 remained relatively strong for the month, although growth ended in December with a decline of 140,000.
The JOLTS report indicated that the slowdown in vacancies came mainly in hospitality, where pubs, restaurants, hotels and casinos were hit hard by the economic constraints imposed by officials to combat Covid. The number of cases continued to rise despite closures and other restrictions.
Recreation and hospitality businesses fell to 801,000 for the month, up from 16,000 in October, but by 17% less than in the same period in 2020.
At the same time, redundancies increased sharply, by 17.6% from October to 1.68 million.
The severance rate rose for the month when 271,000 workers lost or left their jobs, up 3.8% from 3.6% in October. The profit was mainly due to the leisure and hospitality rate, which rose to 8.2% from 5.8%. The rate is calculated by dividing the number of separations by the total employment and multiplying by 100.
Monthly, the largest decrease in jobs was in the production of durable goods (-48,000), information (-45,000) and educational services (-21,000.)
The redemption rate, a power of attorney for employees’ confidence that they can get new jobs, has changed little by 2.2% for the month. However, leisure and hospitality gained a sharp profit in the benchmark and rose to 4.7% from 4.3% as workers in the industry switched to other occupations. Within the industry, accommodation and food services rose to 5% from 4.5% in October.
Rents generally changed little at a rate of 4.2%. Once again, leisure and hospitality fell sharply, from a rate of 7.8% to 7.3% to the lowest overall level since August.