U.S. job openings edged lower in June, settling at a three-month low even as the labor market proved resilient against an energy-price shock triggered by fighting in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Employers posted 7.36 million vacancies in June, down from 7.54 million in May, the Labor Department reported. The figures fell in line with economists’ expectations and marked the lowest reading in three months.
Layoffs held steady at 1.8 million, while the number of workers voluntarily quitting their jobs rose slightly. A rise in quits is typically read as a sign that employees feel confident about finding new positions.
The data points to a job market that has largely held its footing despite a surge in energy prices tied to the conflict in Iran, recovering from a slump in 2025. The dip in openings, however, has revived questions over whether hiring momentum built in the spring is beginning to fade.
So far this year, companies, government agencies and nonprofits have added an average of 92,000 jobs a month. That marks a sharp rebound from fewer than 10,000 a month last year — the weakest pace outside a recession since 2002 — when high interest rates and policy uncertainty pushed employers to hold back on hiring.
Those pressures echoed conditions flagged earlier this year, when tariff-related uncertainty weighed on employment forecasts and dampened business confidence.
The Labor Department is scheduled to release its July jobs report on Friday. A survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet anticipates job gains of 100,000, up from 57,000 in June, with the unemployment rate holding at a low 4.2%.
In previous years, a monthly gain of 100,000 jobs would have been considered lackluster. But a slowdown in immigration and the ongoing wave of Baby Boomer retirements have shrunk the pool of people competing for work, meaning the economy requires fewer new jobs to keep unemployment stable.
Some economists now argue the “break-even” rate — the number of jobs needed each month to prevent the jobless rate from rising — could be close to zero, a structural shift that complicates traditional readings of labor-market strength.
Attention now turns to Friday’s report and to the Federal Reserve, which continues to weigh the balance between cooling inflation and sustaining employment as it maps out its interest-rate path for the remainder of the year.