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Job Openings drop 8 Percent; Private Sector Shoulders nearly all of the Pain
by Bob Beauprez 

The CNBC headline says it all: “Job Openings Report Show Market is…Really, Really Bad” - not the stuff of which re-election campaigns are made. 

It is all about the newest JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) report from the Labor Department that new job openings declined by 325,000 in April; an 8% drop in just one month.  New hires also declined in April by 160,000.  Nearly 9-out-of-10 of the decline in job openings was in the private sector that President Obama claims is “doing fine.” 

“The reading for April job openings offered by employers retreated sharply from its highest since July 2008, validating claims that the sharp slowdown in the labor market is a major threat to the economic recovery,” according to Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak in New York. 

Total job separations (includes quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations) within the private sector increased by 71,000 for the month; a further indication of growing economic weakness.  Conversely, total separations for government jobs actually improved by 3,000 in April casting doubt on the President’s assertion that the private sector was fine, but beefing up government payrolls is where help was needed.     

Following the horrible new jobs report for May, this is the last thing that Team Obama wanted to hear.  No wonder, the President wants to talk about anything but his dismal economic record. 

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