More judicious with pace of hiring/Not feeling as good

The drop in the number of job openings to 8.83mm puts it at the least amount since March 2021. The hiring rate in turn slowed to 3.7% which is below where it was in February 2020 when it was at 3.9%. The number of quitters shrunk too and the quit rate fell one tenth m/o/m to 2.3% which is where it stood in February 2020. 

It was a drop in openings in the 'professional/business services' category that led the decline as it fell by about 200k m/o/m. Manufacturing openings fell by 30k to the least since January 2021. There was also a drop of 155k in the number of job openings at the government level, with most at state and local governments. Job openings rose by 62, in leisure/hospitality after dropping the past few months. Construction job openings fell by 23k. There was no change in retail job openings but comes after two months of declines. The 'information' category saw a bounce back of 101k in job needs to be filled. 

Bottom line, while job openings are still being overstated (can list multiple job adds in different states for one job and what I learned from the chief economist at ZipRecruiter is that employers sometimes now list one job opening but in multiple title roles/salaries to see what attracts and they get counted multiple times), this is just further evidence of the reduction in the pace of hiring's as seen in a few different important data points. When you hear 'challenging macro economic environment' in just about every single conference call, this is the natural reaction on the part of an employer, to be more judicious with adding staff.