WASHINGTON (AP) — Employers posted 7.2 million job vacancies in July, according to a new federal government report.

The Labor Department this week reported that job openings fell from 7.4 million in June and came in modestly below what economists had forecast.

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) showed that layoffs rose slightly.

The number of Americans quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in their ability to find better pay, opportunities or working conditions elsewhere — was unchanged from June at 3.2 million.

Jobs openings remain at historically healthy levels but have fallen steadily since peaking at a record 12.1 million in March 2022 as the nation’s economy roared back from COVID-19 lockdowns.

The job market has lost momentum this year, partly because of the lingering effects of 11 interest rate hikes by the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve in 2022 and 2023 and partly because President Donald Trump’s trade policies have created uncertainty that may be delaying managers from making hiring decisions.

Today, the Labor Department is scheduled to release unemployment and hiring numbers for August. They are expected to show that businesses, government agencies and nonprofits added nearly 80,000 jobs last month, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet. That would mark a modest improvement on the 73,000 jobs they created in July.

So far this year, the economy has been generating 85,000 jobs a month, down from 168,000 last year and an average of 400,000 a month during the hiring boom of 2021-23.

Analysts say that in a time of uncertainty, employers are less likely to hire, but they’re not letting workers go either. Layoffs remain below pre-pandemic levels.