The U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS reported job a record 10.9 million job openings as of the last day of July, bettering an upwardly revised 10.2 million in June. The record number of job openings were driven by health care and social assistance (+294,000), finance and insurance (+116,000), and accommodation and food services (+115,000). The job openings rate rose to 6.9% and hires dipped slightly to 6.7M.  The number of vacancies topped hires by 4.3M in July, the most since 2000. The number of people who voluntarily left their jobs rose to 4M, while the quits rate was unchanged at 2.7%. Hiring increases came in state and local government education (+33,000) and in federal government (+21,000). Decreases came in retail trade (-277,000), durable goods manufacturing (-41,000) and educational services (-23,000). There have been 72.6M hires and 65.6M separations over the past 12 months, resulting in a net employment gain of 7M.  The economy is operating some 5.3M jobs shy of the pre-pandemic level. July’s JOLTS figures are a month behind the government’s monthly jobs data which last week, showed payrolls rising only 235,000 in August.

The US Energy Information Administration reported that US commercial crude oil stockpiles decreased by 1.5M barrels to 423.9M barrels (6% below the five-year average) for the week ending September 3rd. Crude oil refinery inputs averaged 14.3M barrels per day, a decrease of 1.6M barrels per day as compared to the previous week’s average. Gasoline inventories declined by 7.2M barrels (4% below the five-year average,) while distillate inventories fell by 3.1M barrels (12% below the five-year average). Refineries operated at 81.9% of their operable capacity, as gasoline production increased an average of 10.1M barrels per day. Crude oil imports came in at 5.8M barrels per day, a decrease of 0.5M barrels per day as compared to the previous week. Crude oil imports averaged about 6.2M barrels per day over the last four weeks, 12.2% more than the same period last year. Total commercial petroleum inventories dropped by 10.4M barrels last week.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the US producer price index up 0.7% in August, after increasing 1.0% in July. The U.S. PPI is up a heady 8.3% for the 12 months ending in August, the fastest rate since November 2010 and follows an already strong 7.8% increase in July. The index for final demand goods increased 1.0% and followed a 0.6% boost in July. Half of the broad-based advance can be attributed to a 2.9% rise in prices for final demand foods. The Core PPI, which excludes the more volatile food and energy prices, was up 0.3% month-over-month and 6.3% for the 12-month period ending in August. This is the largest 12-month advance since August 2014. Final demand services rose 0.7%, with two-thirds of the increase attributable to a 1.5% gain in trade services - the margins received by wholesalers and retailers. About one-third of the increase in prices for final demand services can be attributed to health, beauty, and optical goods, which posted a strong 7.8% increase. Prices related to outpatient hospital care fell 1.5%.