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Job openings tumbled in October to their lowest in 2½ years, a sign the historically tight labor market could be loosening. Employment openings totaled a seasonally adjusted 8.73 million for the month, a decline of 617,000, or 6.6%, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The number was well below the 9.4 million estimate from Dow Jones and the lowest since March 2021. The decline in vacancies brought the ratio of openings to available workers down to 1.3 to 1, a level that only a few months ago was around 2 to 1 and is nearly inline with the pre-pandemic level of...

A pair of new companies are being launched to tackle high drug costs, the latest sign of employer frustration with the middlemen, known as PBMs, whose job it is to keep down the spending. The Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company PBC and the Purchaser Business Group on Health, a nonprofit coalition of nearly 40 large public and private employers, said they are each starting new pharmacy-benefit management companies. PBMs work on behalf of employers, labor unions and governments to decide which drugs are available to patients, negotiate rebates on the prices paid for those drugs and process payments to...

Fox Corp.’s chief human resources officer, Kevin Lord, told staffers Tuesday that the company had hit a 90% vaccination rate among full-time employees and will start giving daily COVID tests to those who are not vaccinated, prompting a happy response from the White House. A White House spokesperson told CNN Tuesday night, “Today’s news from Fox News follows a trend we’re seeing across the country: vaccination and testing requirements work. We are glad they have stepped up to protect their workforce and strengthen the economy, and we encourage them convey to their audience that these types of practices will protect...

There are approximately 1.2 unfilled job openings for every unemployed American.. Should unemployment welfare pay more than your typical job? Those familiar with the basic economics of how incentives work would say no. So would anyone with moral objections to taking wealth from others to finance others’ idleness. But with the federal supplement to unemployment benefits set to finally end on Sept. 6, some progressives are raising the alarm. For context, the program in question is a federal expansion of pre-existing state-level unemployment benefits. The expansion was originally passed at the height of the pandemic, in March of 2020. The...

U.S. job openings rose in April to a fresh record high, along with the number of people who voluntarily left their jobs, underscoring fervent labor demand and turnover as businesses emerge from pandemic-related restrictions and the economy strengthens. The number of available positions climbed to 9.3 million during the month, the highest on data back to 2000, from an upwardly revised 8.3 million in March, the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed Tuesday. The increase in vacancies was broad. The number of people who voluntarily left their jobs increased to 4 million in April, while...

U.S. job openings jumped to a record high in August, far outpacing a rise in hiring, suggesting that companies could be increasingly having difficulties finding qualified workers. The Labor Department said in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, report on Tuesday that there were 7.14 million unfilled positions in the economy in August. That was the highest level since the series started in 2000 and compared to 7.08 million vacancies in July. The job openings rate also rose to an all-time high of 4.6 percent from 4.5 percent in July. Hiring increased to a record high...

U.S. job openings rose to 6.7 million at the end of April, compared with the 6.3 million Americans who were unemployedThe U.S. had more job openings this spring than unemployed Americans. For the first time since such record-keeping began in 2000, the number of available positions exceeded the number of job seekers, the Labor Department said Tuesday, a shift that is rippling across the economy and affecting the behavior of employers and workers. U.S. job openings rose to a seasonally adjusted 6.7 million at the end of April, a record high, and more than the 6.3 million Americans who were...

The possibility of 50,000 Las Vegas casino workers going on strike drew closer Thursday, with their contracts expiring at midnight and the prospects of new ones still uncertain. The bartenders, housekeepers, bellmen and other unionized workers at 34 casino-hotels on the Strip and downtown Las Vegas have been negotiating new five-year contracts since February. But wages, workplace training and other issues have kept their union and employers from reaching agreements, pushing employees to authorize the first strike in more than 30 years at any time starting Friday. Here's a look at the negotiations and a possible strike:

One month ago, when the JOLTS data showed the highest number of job openings in history, rising by a near record 430,000 to 5.8 million vacant positions, most speculated that this data - considered to be Janet Yellen's favorite indicator of slack in the labor market now that the unemployment rate has become utterly unreliable due to the 94 million Americans out of the labor force - had sealed the fate of a September rate hike. It did not, as instead the Fed decided to shift to its 4th mandate (the 3rd being the stock market), namely the "global...

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. businesses in February posted the largest number of job openings in more than two years, evidence that hiring is picking up as the economy grows. The Labor Department said Wednesday that employers advertised 3.1 million available jobs that month, the most since September 2008. That was the height of the financial crisis, when Lehman Brothers collapsed. The competition for those jobs is easing, though still intense. The department's report shows that there were 4.4 people, on average, competing for each available job in February. That's down from nearly 7 in July 2009, but still above the...

Are you unemployed? Are you employed, but looking around for another job? Are you looking for an extra job, part-time job, work from home job, starting your own business, or finding a good turn-key business? Are you looking for a job for yourself, a family member or a friend? Are you looking for career tips? If any of these apply, this is the thread to bookmark.

Job openings fell by nearly one-quarter last year as layoffs also soared Finding a job got much tougher last year, as the number of available openings fell by nearly one quarter. At the same time, the unemployed population soared by more than one-third, leaving more laid-off workers competing for fewer jobs. All told, there were 6.1 unemployed workers in December, on average, for every available position, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday. That's a sharp increase from 3.4 jobless workers per opening in December of 2008, and much worse than the 1.7 unemployed people per opening in December 2007,...

WALNUT CREEK — Almost a month after an internal probe pushed 50 immigrant workers out of their jobs at a downtown Target store, interviews with former and current store employees portray a mass firing that was selective, planned in advance and confusing to many of those forced out. Sparked by an allegation that illegal immigrants worked on the night shift, the Walnut Creek store last month attracted the attention of the Minneapolis corporate headquarters of the 1,700-store chain. The company sent a team to investigate, according to several people close to the incident. By the end of the second week...