U.S. job openings dropped to 7.4 million by the last day of September, the lowest level since January 2021, according to data released Oct. 29 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Job openings decreased by about 400,000, or 0.2 percentage points, from August to September and are down by 1.9 million year over year.
The healthcare and social assistance sector, which includes industries such as hospitals, nursing and residential care facilities, and ambulatory healthcare services, experienced one of the largest declines in September, with a drop of 178,000 job openings, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.
The latest data represent a continued progression toward labor market normalization, Eugenio Aleman, chief economist for Raymond James, told CNN.
Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, expressed similar sentiments in a post on her LinkedIn profile.
"The slide in job openings and quits, and spike in layoffs, [per the JOLTS report], signal a labor market which likely continued to soften over the course of the month," Ms. Pollak wrote.
She noted that the JOLTS report is based on data from the last day of the month, and multiple factors likely played a role in the latest numbers.
The figures "may partly reflect the effects of Hurricane Helene and the Boeing strike," she wrote Oct. 29. "Specifically, hires may be temporarily depressed and layoffs overstated."