That's what happened today when in the latest JOLTS report, the US dept of labor reported that in June the US had 7.359 million job openings, down 178K from the (downward revised) May total of 7.537 million, and below the median estimate of 7.454 million. According to the BLS the number of job openings increased in transportation, warehousing, and utilities (+97,000) and in federal government. Job openings decreased in wholesale trade (-74,000), nondurable goods manufacturing (-55,000), and mining and logging (-9,000). The latest JOLTS report also means that after falling back to 0.9x in March, in April the ratio of job openings rose over 1.0x and was the highest since January 2025. In any case, since this hires number feeds directly into the payrolls calculations (after netting out separations) this explains why the May payrolls report jumped by 57K, even as the JOLTS implied number was far weaker than that.