By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- The U.S. labor market finally stopped defying gravity in August, the number of vacancies dropping sharply as the surge in inflation overshadowed the outlook for the economy, prompting employers to scale back their hiring plans.
Financial markets took the news as an argument for the Federal Reserve to stop raising interest rates aggressively, inasmuch as it corroborates other evidence of an increasingly broad and clear slowdown in the U.S. economy.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note fell 9 basis points to 3.66%, a two-week low, while the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six developed economy currencies, fell around a quarter point to 110.65. The S&P 500 meanwhile, rose 2.8%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite rose 2.5% and 3.3% respectively.
The Labor Department said total vacancies fell by over 1 million in August to 10.053 million, from a July number that was also revised down by nearly 70,000 to 11.170 million. The number was well below analysts' expectations for a total of around 10.775 million.