{"id":833241,"date":"2026-09-01T17:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T17:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/833241\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T17:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T17:22:16","slug":"us-labor-market-still-sturdy-with-july-job-opening-up-slightly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/833241\/","title":{"rendered":"US labor market still sturdy with July job opening up slightly"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Employers posted slightly more job openings in July but the American labor market remained sturdy in the face of higher costs<\/a> that are squeezing household budgets.<\/p>\n

U.S. job openings ticked up to 7.27 million in July from a revised 7.18 million in June, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. <\/p>\n

The department\u2019s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) also showed that layoffs fell. But so did the number of people quitting their jobs \u2014 a sign of confidence in their prospects. The report showed that gross hiring \u2014 before subtracting those who lost or quit their jobs \u2014 dipped to 5.1 million in July from 5.3 million in June. <\/p>\n

The American job market is hardly booming, but it is ambling along despite an energy shock<\/a> caused by the fighting with Iran<\/a> that has squeezed family budgets.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n AP AUDIO: US job openings rise slightly to 7.3 million as labor market remains sturdy despite higher costs\n <\/p>\n

The AP\u2019s Marcela Sanchez has the Labor Department\u2019s July job openings report.<\/p>\n

So far this year, U.S. employers \u2014 companies, nonprofits and government agencies \u2014 added an average of 61,000 net jobs a month. The figure \u2014 which was dragged down by job losses in February and July \u2014 is unimpressive. But it\u2019s an improvement on 2025 when job growth came in below 10,000 a month \u2014 weakest hiring outside a recession since 2002 \u2014 as the lingering effect of high interest rates and uncertainty caused by Trump\u2019s tariffs discouraged firms from hiring.<\/p>\n

But if U.S. employers aren\u2019t hiring much, at least they aren\u2019t firing much either. The unemployment rate remains at a low 4.1%, and the number of people signing up for unemployment benefits has come in low week after week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe labor market is back in the \u2018low fire, low hire\u2019 mode,\u201d said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. \u201cCompanies are growing cautious as the war in Iran drags on and borrowing costs have spiked.\u2019’<\/p>\n

When the Labor Department puts out numbers on August hiring and unemployment Friday, it\u2019s expected to show that employers added 65,000 last month and that the jobless rate ticked up to 4.2%, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Employers posted slightly more job openings in July but the American labor market remained sturdy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,12,101,793,75469,801,1570,228242,1931,1929,8878,795],"class_list":["post-833241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-general-news","tag-heather-long","tag-iran","tag-iran-government","tag-iran-war","tag-jobs-and-careers","tag-labor","tag-u-s-department-of-labor","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}