US Job Openings Unexpectedly Rose in April and Hiring Picked Up

 

US job openings unexpectedly rose in April in a fairly broad advance, and hiring picked up, indicating demand for workers remains healthy despite heightened economic uncertainty.

Available positions increased to 7.39 million from a revised 7.20 million reading in March, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data published Tuesday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 7.10 million openings.

The advance in openings was driven by private-sector industries such as professional and business services, as well as health care and social assistance. While state and local education led to a decline in overall government openings, vacancies in the federal government rose.

The data can be very choppy, swinging by sometimes as much as 500,000 vacancies in either direction from month to month. Economists see value in looking at the report from an overall trend, which shows openings have mostly stabilized between 7 million and 8 million for the past year.

The rise in job openings, along with steady hiring and low unemployment, supports the Federal Reserve’s assertion that the job market is in a good place. However, it’s taking longer for those who are out of a job to find work, and economists expect the labor market to weaken more notably in the coming months under the weight of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

So far, that hasn’t shown up in the data yet, supporting the Fed’s posture to keep interest rates steady for now. Policymakers and forecasters will be attuned to any softening in the job market in the government’s May jobs report, due Friday, which is projected to show a slower pace of job growth and a stable unemployment rate.

Hiring advanced to the highest level in nearly a year, according to the JOLTS report. However, the number of layoffs climbed to the highest since October, and fewer people voluntarily quit their jobs, suggesting people are less confident in their ability to find a new position.

The number of vacancies per unemployed worker, a ratio Fed officials watch closely as a proxy of the balance between labor demand and supply, held at 1.0, in line with pre-pandemic levels. At its peak in 2022, the ratio was 2 to 1.

Some economists have questioned the validity of the JOLTS data, in part due to the survey’s low response rate and heavy revisions. A similar index by job-posting site Indeed, which is reported daily, showed openings declined in April.

Dollar General (DG.N), opens new tab raised its annual targets after beating estimates for quarterly profit and same-store sales and said more consumers across income groups came in to shop at its stores amid tariff-related uncertainty and still-high inflation.

The forecast lift took the company's shares up 14% on Tuesday and came in sharp contrast to other retailers cutting financial targets and sounding caution on consumer spending due to President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff policies.

The company's core lower-income consumer remains under pressure, but more middle- and higher-income consumers were shopping at its stores than they have had in the last four years, Dollar General Chief Executive Officer Todd Vasos said on a post-earnings call.

Dollar stores have historically stood a better chance of weathering out tougher economic conditions as consumers shop for cheaper goods at these outlets to stretch their budgets.

More consumables and other everyday essentials on Dollar General's shelves, and efforts to revamp its stores and merchandise have also helped the company tackle stiff competition from big-box retailers such as Walmart (WMT.N), opens new tab.

"While traffic declines are a bit concerning and the ticket increase may have been boosted by price increases, we think this is Dollar General's best quarter since the early pandemic," Truist Securities analyst Scot Ciccarelli said in a note.

Dollar General's stock has risen about 28% so far during the year as global markets swung between losses and gains in response to the tariffs.

The company now expects annual same-store sales growth at between 1.5% and 2.5%, compared with its prior target of 1.2% to 2.2%. It also raised the low end of its annual earnings per share target by 10 cents to $5.20, keeping the top end unchanged at $5.80.

Dollar General also reduced the amount of its private-label goods it imports from China to about 70%, and executives said that the company expects to mitigate most of the impact on its cost of goods from these levies.

The Tennessee-based company's same-store sales for the three months ended May 2 grew 2.4%, topping estimates of a 1.41% rise, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Its first-quarter earnings per share of $1.78 also handily beat Street expectations of $1.48.

Despite the results, Dollar General acknowledged tariff-fueled uncertainty that looms over the rest of the year and said consumer spending could be pressured by tariff-related price increases.

Rival Dollar Tree (DLTR.O), opens a new tab, which offloaded the Family Dollar chain earlier this year, reports first-quarter results on Wednesday.

This year's hottest summer travel trend? Waiting for deals.

Americans are scaling back travel plans from flights to drives or waiting to book only if the price is right, a tell-tale sign of an industry slowdown that's got travel companies worried.

Hotel summer bookings are either flat or falling from last year, and airline bookings are down even though airfares have also declined, as economic concerns fuel a pullback in spending.

Travel companies, including Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), opens new tab, Marriott International (MAR.O), opens new tab, and online travel agency Booking Holdings (BKNG.O), opens new tab have withdrawn or revised their 2025 annual forecasts as U.S. demand softens. Airbnb (ABNB.O), opens new tab, flagged shrinking booking windows as consumers take a "wait-and-see" approach and book trips closer to their check-in dates.

That has left companies with less visibility into the second half of the year. Delta said in early Aprilthat  it was premature to project the full year given macroeconomic uncertainty. United Airlines (UAL.O), opens new tab, said there's a reasonable chance that bookings could weaken.

"It's very clear that consumers are waiting to make decisions, including for the summer," Southwest Airlines (LUV.N), opens new tab CEO Robert Jordan said at the Bernstein Annual Strategic Decisions Conference in late May, adding that demand was stable but lower than expected in January.

U.S. summer flight bookings are down 10% year-over-year, according to Flighthub, an online travel agency, even though airfares have dropped.

"You can't keep an airline seat on the shelf in a warehouse. If you don't fill that seat tomorrow and the airplane flies, it's gone," Steve Hafner, CEO of Kayak, a Booking Holdings unit, told Reuters.

Average summer flight prices declined 7%, with flights to long-haul destinations like Sydney, Australia, 23% cheaper year-over-year, according to Kayak.

Hotel bookings have "actually fallen off and it gets weaker like a month out," Hyatt Hotels (H.N), opens a new tab CEO Mark Hoplamazian told an audience at the NYU International Hospitality Investment Forum on Tuesday. "By the time you get to that month, it recovers."

Summer bookings in major U.S. cities are flat-to-down year-over-year, according to data from CoStar. Average room rates are expected to rise roughly 1.3% in 2025, down from a 1.8% increase in 2024.

"We're not getting that crazy pricing power we got in the early days of the recovery," Marriott CEO Anthony Capuano said, adding that the company was still seeing revenue per available room increase.

WEAKER DOLLAR

Travelers may start to find deals, such as a free third night for staying two nights, as hoteliers look to fill rooms, said Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group.

That's what Jackie Lafferty is hoping for. Her summer plans have shifted from a possible family vacation in Hawaii or Florida to her home state of California instead.

"By the time we broke down the cost of the flights, the hotel, and the rental car, it looked expensive, it felt unreasonable," said Lafferty, a Los Angeles-based public relations director.

The dollar's weakness has driven up the cost of overseas vacations. In March, American travelers surveyed by Deloitte had planned to increase budgets for their longest summer trip by 13%. By April, Deloitte's survey found Americans planned on spending about the same as last year.

"The dollar is just not going as far, and I think people are starting to realize that," said Chirag Panchal, CEO of the Ensuite Collection, a Dallas luxury travel concierge. The dollar has fallen about 10% since mid-January, when it was its strongest in more than two years.

Panchal's clients, who had booked big trips to Europe last year, are either staying domestic or going to closer destinations like Canada or the Caribbean.

"We might go international at the end of the summer. If we do, it will be last-minute and spur of the moment based on cheaper flights," said Rachel Cabeza, 28, an actor and fitness instructor based in New Jersey. For now, her only summer plan is a getaway to Martha's Vineyard in nearby Massachusetts.

Meta just signed a 20-year deal to buy 1.1 gigawatts of nuclear power from a plant in Illinois that was on the verge of shutting down.

Starting in 2027, that energy will help power Meta’s growing AI operations.

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Klarna is expanding beyond Buy Now, Pay Later. The Swedish fintech startup is diving into the debit card business with a new Visa-powered Klarna card as it seeks to become an "all-encompassing banking player," CNBC reports. The card, which is now being piloted in the U.S. and, according to the company, has a waitlist of 5 million consumers — follows the debut of digital wallet services last year and comes ahead of delayed plans for a public offering.