Job openings drop 46,000 to 8.184 million in June
Hires decline 314,000; quits decrease 121,000
Consumer confidence rises to 100.3 in July
Consumers39; perceptions of the labor market deteriorate

WASHINGTON, July 30 Reuters U.S. job openings fell modestly in June and data for the prior month was revised higher, suggesting the labor market continued to gradually slow and was not in danger of rapidly weakening.

Consumers39; perceptions of the labor market are, however, deteriorating. A survey from the Conference Board on Tuesday showed the share of consumers who viewed jobs as hardtoget rising to the highest level in more than three years.

The proportion of those who believed jobs were not so plentiful was also the highest since March 2021. A rise in the unemployment rate over the past three months had stoked concerns about labor market weakness and the overall economic expansion.

The labor market has cooled over the last several months but isn39;t weak, said Nancy Vanden Houten, U.S. lead economist at Oxford Economics. However, that39;s a scenario the Federal Reserve wants to guard against, and we expect the Fed to begin cutting rates in September.

Job openings, a measure of labor demand, had dropped 46,000 to 8.184 million by the last day of June, the Labor Department39;s Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report.

Data for May was revised higher to show 8.230 million unfilled positions instead of the…