The Bureau of Labor Statistics said that manufacturing job openings accelerated in July for the second straight month. Postings in the sector jumped from 361,000 in June to 379,000 in July, even as openings remained below the all-time high of 397,000 observed in April. Through the first seven months of 2016, job openings have averaged 354,000 per month, up from 311,000 for 2015 as a whole.
As such, we have continued to see relatively healthy gains in manufacturing job openings, which gives us optimism for faster hiring growth moving forward. In the July data, the increase in job openings stemmed from a pickup in activity for durable goods firms (up from 200,000 to 227,000); whereas, postings for nondurable goods entities (down from 160,000 to 152,000) declined for the third straight month.
ShopFloor is the blog of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM).
