There were 11.549M job openings in the US at the end of March, the latest JOLTs Job-Opening data release on Tuesday by the US Labour Department revealed, a new record high. That was higher than the 11.344M job openings at the end of February (an estimate which had been revised up from 11.266M previously) and well above the expected decline to 11M. 

Market Reaction

FX markets do not seem to have reacted to the latest JOLTs report, even though it reaffirms the idea that demand for labour in the US economy is currently very high, with the number of job openings far exceeding the total number of unemployed persons. Indeed, this labour market tightness is a key reason, alongside sky-high inflation, why the Fed is expected to get on with aggressive monetary policy tightening in 2022, with a 50 bps rate hike and quantitative tightening announcement in the pipelines on Wednesday.