A hiring sign was placed in front of a Target store on February 5, 2021 in San Rafael, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images
Employers added a little more jobs at the end of last year, but hires fell because the job market ended 2020 on an uncertain note, the Department of Labor reported on Tuesday.
Total openings increased to 6.65 million in December, better than FactSet’s 6.6 million estimate.
This still left a gap of about 4.1 million workers who remained unemployed, many of whom were still displaced by the Covid-19 pandemic.
While job offers continue to rise, they remain below the pre-pandemic level of just over 7 million in February 2020.
Vacancies increased by almost 300,000 in professional and business services, which saw their opening rate increase from 5.6% to 6.9%.
Available vacancies fell in leisure and hospitality, which dropped from 127,000 to 761,000 in the month, which saw the rate of openings drop from 6.2% to 5.5%,
Hiring fell sharply in the month, dropping nearly 400,000 to 5.54 million, according to the Job Opening and Job Turnover Survey, a report closely watched by lawmakers looking for clues about slack in the job market.
Most of the hiring decline occurred in the hospitality sector, which saw a drop from more than 300,000 to 777,000. Within that group, arts, entertainment and recreation represented a decline of 82,000, as the hiring rate fell from 7.8% in November to 3.5%.
Hospitality, which includes hotels, restaurants, bars and casinos, saw an increase in layoffs of 63,000, or 3.9%, from 3.2% in the previous month.
Overall, non-farm payrolls decreased by 227,000 in December. January saw a recovery of 49,000, but more than 10 million remain unemployed, 4.4 million above the pre-pandemic level.
The JOLTS data is a month behind the payroll count. The unemployment rate in January fell to 6.3%, but this occurred amid a sharp drop in the active population.
The level of layoffs, an indicator of worker confidence, increased slightly as 3.29 million workers left their jobs, an increase of 106,000 in the month.
The total number of separations decreased slightly to 5.46 million.