Simon Says: Hospitality business is gaining but not so good for other job openings
The labor market nationally seems to be softening. On July 6th, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that the number of job openings decreased to 9.8 million on the last day of May. Job openings have been declining since May 2022 (see graph below). The next day, the BLS announced that payroll employment increased by 209,000 in June, however, this is a slowdown on previous months. Locally, after four months of declining payroll employment, we have seen employment increase over the last two months. Employment has increased from 241,600