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U.S. job openings unexpectedly rebounded in September amid low unemployment, likely fueling further wage gains and adding pressure on the Federal Reserve to extend its aggressive campaign to curb inflation, Bloomberg News reported. The number of available positions increased to 10.7 million in September from a revised 10.3 million a month earlier, the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed Tuesday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a drop to about 9.8 million. The latest increase in openings erased much of August’s slide, which, at the time, had suggested a notable moderation in labor demand. The largest increases in vacancies were in accommodation and food services, health care, and transportation, warehousing and utilities.

Starting this week, job-seekers in New York City will have access to a key piece of information: how much money they can expect to earn for an advertised opening, the Associated Press reported. New York will require employers as of Nov. 1 to disclose “a good faith salary range for every job, promotion, and transfer opportunity advertised,” according to the city’s Commission on Human Rights. Similar salary transparency laws are being adopted by a small but growing number of cities and states across the country in an effort to address pay disparities for women and people of color. Seher Khawaja, senior attorney for economic empowerment at Legal Momentum whose organization helped draft the New York City law, said salary transparency “gives existing employees and workers information to better gauge how positions within their workplace are valued and whether they’re being paid fairly.”

The National Labor Relations Board reported a 53 percent year-over-year increase in union election petitions over the past 12 months. Meanwhile, 71 percent of Americans say they approve of labor unions, according to Gallup, the highest support in the annual poll since 1965, the Washington Post reported. “In a time where most institutions, including the Supreme Court, are becoming less and less popular or trusted, unions have their highest level of popularity in decades,” said David Weil, the Labor Department’s top wage and hour regulator under President Barack Obama. “We certainly see a restiveness that is coming out of the pandemic. There’s a greater willingness of working people to show dissatisfaction.” However, as the economy teeters toward a downturn in coming months, the window for cementing more victories could be narrowing. Already job openings have fallen, and some companies — particularly in technology and interest-rate-sensitive sectors such as mortgage finance — have ordered hiring freezes and layoffs, igniting fears that the paradigm of power in favor of workers could be short-lived.

NYDIG, a bitcoin trading and banking firm, laid off about a third of its workforce last month, the Wall Street Journal reported. Company executives informed employees affected by the job cuts, which numbered around 110, on Sept. 22. Employees were told the firm was seeking to trim expenses and narrow its focus to more promising businesses. The cutbacks came less than two weeks before NYDIG announced publicly that it had replaced its top two executives. On Oct. 3, NYDIG said that Chief Executive Officer Robert Gutmann and President Yan Zhao had stepped down from their roles. The executives, who will remain with NYDIG parent Stone Ridge Holdings Group, were replaced by Tejas Shah, formerly head of institutional finance, and Nate Conrad, global head of payments, respectively. NYDIG didn’t specify in its statement why the firm was swapping out its top executives, and didn’t note the recent layoffs. The company’s statement said it was on pace for record revenue this year, with sales up 130% during the first half. Ross Stevens, NYDIG’s founder, said, “The firm’s balance sheet is the strongest it’s ever been, and now we’re investing aggressively into a capital-starved market.”

With Americans resuming pre-pandemic habits of going out, eating out and traveling, leisure and hospitality businesses have scrambled to hire, sometimes offering pay increases that outpace inflation. But for many whose pay is linked to tips, like restaurant servers and bartenders, base wages remain low, and collecting what is owed under the law can be a struggle, the New York Times reported. In all but eight states, employers can legally choose to pay workers who receive tips a “subminimum” wage — in some places as low as $2.13 an hour — as long as tips bring their earnings to the equivalent of the minimum wage in a pay period. Economists estimate that at least 5.5 million workers are paid on that basis. The provision, known as the tip credit, is a unique industry subsidy that lets employers meet pay requirements more cheaply. And even in a tight labor market, it is often abused at the employees’ expense, according to workers, labor lawyers, many regulators and economists. “It’s baked into the model,” said David Weil, the administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the Labor Department under President Barack Obama, referring to the frequency of violations. “And it’s very problematic.” In the District of Columbia, a measure on the November ballot would ban the subminimum wage by 2027. A ballot proposal in Portland, Maine, would ban subminimum base pay and bring the regular minimum wage to $18 an hour over three years. Employers in Michigan are bracing for increased expenses in February, when the state tipped minimum of $3.75 an hour is set to be discontinued and the regular state minimum wage will rise to $12 from $9.87.