US job openings hold at a surprising 7.6M in May despite Iran war shock

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. job openings stayed at a surprisingly strong 7.6 million in May as the American labor market remains resilient in the face of the economic shock from the Iran war.

Forecasters had expected employers to post just 7 million openings in May.

The job market is sturdy but not exactly booming. Layoffs rose in May, and the number of people quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in their prospects — ticked up only slightly. That’s according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Tuesday.

Employers are advertising openings, but they aren’t actually doing much hiring. Gross hiring — before counting people who lost or quit their jobs — dipped to 5.17 million in May from 5.26 million in April. When the job market was booming from mid-2021 to mid-2023 after COVID-19 lockdowns, gross monthly hiring regularly topped 6 million.

“The hiring switch needs to fully turn on for the labor market to feel alive again,” ZipRecruiter economist Nicole Bachaud said in a commentary.

After the United States and Israel attacked Feb. 28, Iran retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas passes. Energy prices soared, squeezing Americans already frustrated by the high cost of living.

But the American job market has chugged along, continuing to rebound from a miserable 2025. In the first five months of the year, U.S. employers have added an average of nearly 114,000 net jobs a month. That is up from just 9,700 a month in 2025, the weakest hiring outside a recession since 2002.

High interest rates and President Donald Trump’s unpredictable economic policies discouraged employers from making hiring decisions last year. Trump’s tax cuts and the fact that the United States is an energy producer have limited the economic damage from the war this year.

When the Labor Department releases its jobs report for June on Thursday, it is expected to show that companies, nonprofits and government agencies added another 100,000 jobs and that unemployment stayed at a low 4.3%.

Because of baby boomer retirements and Trump’s immigration crackdown, fewer people are competing for work, and the United States doesn’t need as many jobs as it used to keep the unemployment rate stable. Economists say the so-called “break-even’’ rate of hiring could be as low as zero jobs a month, down from perhaps 150,000 a year or so ago.