I have been writing about the unreliability of JOLTS data for more than a year and now that idea is finally getting some traction.
The problem is that large companies no longer follow the old-fashioned protocol of:
- Realize you need a worker
- Advertise a job
- Fill it
Instead, they're 'always hiring' and leaving up job postings when they're not hiring. In turn, job-seekers have resorted to spamming companies and job sites.
It's even worse than I thought. Today the WSJ writes about how more than half of companies who post job advertisements they weren't actively trying to fill did so "to give the impression the company was growing." Another large portion did so to trick overworked employees into the belief that help would be coming soon. Further reasons include stockpiling a pool of ready applicants if an employee quits or to be ready of an irresistible candidate applies.
They're now being called 'ghost jobs' and they may have been part of what convinced the Fed that the economy was overly strong.
That said, the US clearly has a strong jobs market and unemployment is at record lows while jobless claims are also weakening. At some point that will turn but the signal won't come from JOLTS job openings.