US job openings fall in May, but quits rate moves up

The number of job openings at US companies fell further in May, yet Americans were confident enough to risk switching jobs at an increased pace.

According to the Department of Labor, in seasonally adjusted terms, the number of job openings fell at a month-on-month pace of 4.8% to reach 9.824m.

Hiring on the other hand increased by 1.8% versus April to 6.208m.

Voluntary job separations or so-called quits also grew on the month, by 6.6% to 4.015m.

The rise pushed the quits rate up by two-tenths of a percentage point to 2.6%.

Quits are seen by some economists as a useful gauge of employees' confidence of their ability to find alternate employment on better conditions and hence of the underlying robustness of the jobs market.

"The moderation in labor market data is unlikely to be strong enough to keep the Fed on pause and we expect the FOMC to raise rates at the upcoming meeting in July," said Matthew Martin and Ryan Sweet at Oxford Economics.

"Additionally, JOLTS is only lagged by 2 weeks relative to nonfarm payrolls and at the end of May, the implied employment change (difference between hires and separations) was 337k, supporting our above consensus forecast for June employment due out tomorrow morning.