Despite the economy slowing and facing the risk of recession, employers still want workers and plenty of them.

The number of job openings rose for the first time in four months, jumping to 9.6 million in August from 8.9 million in July, reversing the previous two months of declines, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday. While job openings have been on a downward trend since peaking at more than 12 million in March 2022, they’ve stayed well above pre-pandemi🌟c levels as the chart below shows.

The jump in job openings was unexpected—economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and the Wall Street Journal had expected them to decrease to 8.8 million—and highlighted how the job market has stayed pretty favorable for workers despite the Federal Reserve’s campaign of anti-inflation interest rate hikes.

The gain in workers was mostly due to more than 500,000 job openings being added in the professional and business services sector. That may indicate꧅ this is more of a bump in the road to a cooling labor market than a 🅺reversal of the trend, Nick Bunker, head of economic research at the hiring lab at job hunting website Indeed, said in a commentary. 

“Yes, the job market is still retaining a lot of heat, but it hasn't gone back on the boil,” Bunker said. 

Aside from job openings, other measures of the labor market were little changed. As was the case in July, 2.3% of workers quit their jobs—the same as before the pandemic. The quit rate could be a sign𒁏 that woꦇrkers no longer feel as confident about finding higher wages at other employers, as they did last year.

There were 1.5 job openings per unemployed worker, the same as July and down from last year’s peak of 2. That’s still well aꦕbove the 1.2 job-opening-to-worker ratio before the pandemic, suggesting that job seekers still enjoy elevat🌞ed leverage to negotiate for higher wages. 

Workers have grown more scarce since the pandemic provoked a wave of early retirements, leaving employers to compete for talent, and putting 💜upward pressure on wag🌞es.