US Daily Commentary

Research evidence excerpt

US Daily Commentary

Global Markets Research

30 June 2026US Daily Commentary

Economics - North America

Research Analysts

Review & Preview North America Economics

Review Aichi Amemiya - NSI aichi.amemiya@nomura.com

JOLTSjobopenings: JOLTS job openings rose to 7594k in May (Nomura: 7050k, +1 212 667 9347

Consensus: 7296k) from a downwardly revised 7585k in April (7618k previously). The job Jeremy Schwartz - NSI

openings rate remained unchanged at 4.6%, while the V-U ratio edged higher to 1.04 from jeremy.schwartz@nomura.com

1.03 previously. Despite recent strength in job openings, we have not seen any conclusive +1 212 667 9637

evidence of a sharp re-acceleration in labor demand, as other measures of job finding Ruchir Sharma - NSI

(e.g., the Conference Board labor differential) have remained lackluster (Fig.1). ruchir.sharma@nomura.com

+1 212 667 9186Job openings for professional and business services were revised modestly lower for

April, but remain elevated. Note, JOLTS data have been noisy lately and have remained a

positive outlier, while alternative indicators of job openings (such as Indeed) have trended

lower. Additionally, the unit response rate for JOLTS has continued to trend lower post

pandemic, making us skeptical about its recent outperformance (Fig.2).

Quits and hiring rates were sideways in the month. The layoff rate ticked up, but remained

within its recent range, which we believe is a reassuring sign that the labor market is not

experiencing any stress.

Consumerconfidence: The Conference Board's consumer confidence index inched up

slightly to 91.2 in June (Consensus: 94.4, Nomura: 94.2) from a downwardly revised 90.6

in May (93.1 previously). Households' assessment on labor markets deteriorated as the