00:00Jolts level, everybody's interested in because it's a February number.
00:03We're finally caught up now.
00:05It's still a month before, but it does show that job openings were a little lower,
00:12$6,822,000 down from $6,946.
00:16The quits level is at 1.9%, the layoffs rate at 1.1%.
00:24The quits rate down a tick, the layoffs rate up a tick.
00:28And then consumer confidence is surprisingly stronger, $91.8 up from revised $91.0.
00:36Present situation, $123.3 from $120.
00:40And expectations, that's the only one that drops, $70.9 from $72.
00:46So it is a bit of a surprise because we saw the Michigan numbers go down,
00:52and these are March numbers for the conference board.
00:55I'll check and see what we get from them in terms of the breakdown of their numbers in just a
01:01second.
01:01But I can also tell you that job openings went up because I just got the revised number for January,
01:07$7,240,000.
01:09So we went from $7,240,000 down to $6,822.
01:14So it is a bigger drop than we thought,
01:18and it does show the labor market is remaining quite loose.
01:22It doesn't look good, Mike.
01:24So we've basically more layoffs, right?
01:28Companies are firing more people.
01:30Workers are quitting less,
01:32so they're less confident to leave their jobs and look for something else.
01:36And job openings are down pretty drastically from $7.2 million to $6.8 million.
01:41Yeah, basically what it's telling you is that we're still status quo in this low-fire, low-hire economy
01:47where people don't know if they're going to be able to get jobs,
01:50so they're not going to quit,
01:51and where basically companies don't know if they need people,
01:55so they're going to keep them there.
01:57I just got the breakdown from the conference board on consumer numbers,
02:05and I can give you the numbers on jobs and what people are thinking about it.
02:10In terms of employment, people think the number of jobs plentiful goes up.
02:15It's 27.3 from 26.7.
02:19Jobs hard to get goes up a little bit, 21.5 from 21.
02:23So people feeling better about their situation at the moment,
02:28but we do see a drop in six months from now, 15.4 from 16% think there will be
02:34more jobs,
02:35and the number of people who think there will be fewer, 27.9 from 26.2.
02:39So people are thinking longer term, this is not good,
02:44but in the short run, they remain relatively confident,
02:48which is not what you see in the Michigan numbers.
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