Job openings unexpectedly increased in May
Job openings, which serve as a closely watched measure of labor market demand, totaled an estimated 7.77 million at the end May, rising from 7.4 million in April, according to the BLS' latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.
Economists were expecting the number of available jobs to retreat after unexpectedly bouncing higher in April. Consensus estimates were for job openings to total 7.3 million last month, according to FactSet.
Instead, they rose for the second month in a row.
Some of the most substantial increases in job postings were at restaurants and hotels, which saw a surge (+314,000) in advance of summer travel season after openings in that sector hit a low-water mark in April. The finance and insurance industry also saw a sizeable upswing in job openings, Tuesday's data showed.
While overall hiring activity remained fairly tepid in May, the accommodation and food services sector filled open jobs at a pace last seen in the summer of 2023, indicating potential optimism for continued consumer spending despite broadening economic uncertainty.
President Donald Trump's sweeping (and frequently shifting) trade policy, as well as heightened geopolitical tension, have injected incredible uncertainty into the US economy, sending markets on a roller coaster ride, rattling consumers and freezing some business decisions.
Tuesday's data is the first in a series of critically important economic metrics released this week about the labor market, culminating with the June jobs report that's due out on Thursday morning.
This story is developing and will be updated.
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BRICS Aspires to Occupy Ground Vacated by US Under Trump
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The concluding language is unlikely to directly cite the US. But the group is sending an unmistakable signal to the Trump administration on the eve of the July 9 deadline for his levies to take effect. BRICS members all agree that 'these tariffs are not productive,' Ambassador Xolisa Mabhongo, South Africa's lead negotiator, or sherpa, said in an interview. 'They are not good for the world economy. They are not good for development.' As Trump alienates traditional allies and pursues his America First agenda, BRICS is seeking to occupy the ground the US leader has ceded. The upshot is that the group long presumed to be forging an alternative to the US-led world order is now projecting itself as defender of those same core values, including free trade and multilateralism. 'Multilateralism is going through its worst moment since the World War II,' Lula said Friday during a meeting of the New Development Bank, the financing arm of the BRICS. China will work with member states to 'strengthen the BRICS strategic partnership and safeguard multilateralism,' Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in a briefing in Beijing on Wednesday. Even with Trump providing some elements of a unity of purpose, the BRICS grouping is still likely to fall far short of wielding the global influence its members have long sought. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who held a state visit to Brasilia in November and is expected to attend the COP30 climate summit in Brazil later this year, is skipping the BRICS meeting. Vladimir Putin of Russia will stay away to avoid putting Brazil's government in the uncomfortable position of having to arrest a president wanted for war crimes in Ukraine. Founded in 2009, the original BRICS group has long suffered from a lack of shared values among members who have little in common beyond their status as large, emerging economies that wanted a voice in global affairs dominated by Washington and the West. 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Stocks fade as tariff deadline looms large
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The House just passed Donald Trump's ‘One Big, Beautiful Bill.' Here's what that means for you
The GOP's budget package is on its way to President Donald Trump's desk after Speaker Mike Johnson called his colleagues' bluffs and put the Senate's package on the floor for a vote Thursday afternoon. It passed with a thin but steady 218-214 margin after conservatives in the chamber who were upset with changes made to the bill by the Senate folded one last time. So too did all the various Republicans who drew lines in the sand regarding cuts to Medicaid benefits or eligibility standards. The bill was passed through the budget reconciliation process in the Senate, meaning that it required only a simple majority to pass. That process also barred the bill from containing explicit policy provisions — though money itself is policy, and this legislation still provides plenty of funding for the president's political priorities. 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Put simply, the Trump administration is set to have the resources it needs for a massive upscaling in the daily number of arrests and raids that ICE agents are carrying out across the country. Utterly villainized by the right (to a questionable degree of success) after it was introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey, the 'Green New Deal' never actually became law in any form. That doesn't stop Republicans from insisting otherwise, however, and many have latched on to the phrase as they pushed to roll back electric vehicle tax credits passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act under Joe Biden's presidency. Those provisions originated in Biden's signature 'Build Back Better' legislation, which failed early into the Democratic president's term thanks to an inability of Democrats to pull two centrist members of their Senate caucus into line. 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