NEW YORK, July 2 (Reuters) - Benchmark 10-year Treasury yields dipped on Tuesday following a closely-watched reading of the jobs market and comments by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that monetary policy is closer to the tradeoff point where rate cuts are appropriate.

The resiliency of the U.S. labor market has influenced the Fed's decision to hold benchmark interest rates near two-decade highs in the hope of avoiding a resurgence of inflation.

Job openings, a measure of labor demand, rose 221,000 to 8.140 million on the last day of May, the lowest level since February 2021 and slightly ahead of Wall Street expectations, the Labor Department said on Tuesday. Data for April was revised down to show 7.919 million unfilled positions instead of the previously reported 8.059 million.

While neither the job openings data nor Powell's comments appeared to affect market expectations of roughly 46 basis points in interest rate cuts by December, the market appeared to show relief following a selloff on Monday, said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.

"Powell and the macro data has helped move yields a little bit lower, but the political side of the equation and uncertainty over the deficit under a Republican-controlled government has pushed them higher," he said.

Yields rose on Monday to their highest levels since May as investors increasingly priced in the possibility that former President Donald Trump will prevail in the November presidential elections.

Trump, who was widely seen as winning last week's debate against President Joe Biden, was further bolstered Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he has broad immunity from prosecution, making it improbable that he will be tried before the election on charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

"The price action has its grounding in forward inflation and issuance expectations in the event of a Trump victory in November, as well as the perceived increase in the probability of such an outcome," said Ian Lyngen, Head of U.S. Rates Strategy at BMO Capital Markets.

The yield on the benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury note fell 3.2 basis points to 4.447%. The yield on the 30-year bond fell 1.5 basis points to 4.628%.

The two-year U.S. Treasury yield, which typically moves in step with interest rate expectations, fell 3.9 basis points to 4.733%.

A closely watched part of the U.S. Treasury yield curve measuring the gap between yields on two- and 10-year Treasury notes, seen as an indicator of economic expectations, was at a negative 28.8 basis points, leaving it near its least-inverted position since May. (Reporting by David Randall; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Barbara Lewis and Christina Fincher)