Business View Magazine l November 2022

13 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 11 FED MEETS AS DEMAND FOR WORKERS STOKES RED-HOT LABOR M Dive Brief: • Federal Reserve policymakers began a two- day meeting Tuesday as fresh data showed that job openings rose and layoffs fell in September despite central bank efforts to cool the red-hot labor market and curb the highest inflation in nearly four decades. • In a sign that inflationary wage pressures persist, layoffs in September declined and job openings increased 437,000 to 10.7 million, far exceeding the 5.8 million people seeking employment, the Labor Department said. • Roughly 4.1 million workers quit their jobs in September, the Labor Department said. The quits rate, or the number of workers who left their jobs as a percent of total employment, held at 2.7, well above the pre-pandemic level and an indication that workers are confident of getting higher-paying jobs elsewhere. Dive Insight: In an encouraging sign for efforts by Fed policymakers to rein in demand, new data showed that U.S. manufacturing slowed in October close to stagnation, with orders falling for the fourth time in five months. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) index of manufacturing for October dipped 0.7 point to 50.2, just 0.2 point above the border between contraction and expansion. Job openings in manufacturing fell during September, the Labor Department said. OPENING L INES