America’s labor market is beginning to find its footing again

By Alicia Wallace, CNN

(CNN) — The US labor market, long stuck in a “low-hire, low-fire” slog, is starting to show some signs of life.

The latest official labor turnover data showed that employers increased hiring efforts in June, a slight but welcome ramp-up.

The number of job openings has trended higher in April and May, indicating employers’ appetites were growing to expand their workforces; however, hiring remained muted.

That started to change a little in June, according to the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Hiring activity hit a three-month high. The number of job openings edged lower to 7.36 million but remained above levels seen last year.

Economists had expected that the estimated number of available jobs – considered a metric of labor demand – would fall in June to 7.4 million from May’s initial estimate of 7.594 million openings.

Tuesday’s data is the first in a series of critically important economic metrics released this week about the labor market, culminating with the July jobs report on Friday morning.

This story is developing and will be updated.

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