Latest JOLTS Report Shows a Steady Labor Market
Latest JOLTS Report Shows a Steady Labor Market
Today’s JOLTS Report for April is mixed. While the decline in job openings from a revised 8.4M to 8.1M, the lowest level in three years, suggests softening demand for workers, the increase in hires and quits implies quite the opposite—resilient demand and plentiful opportunity.
Note that much of the decline in openings was driven by health care and social assistance, where hires and quits rose most sharply. In other words, the decline could be more of a statistical blip than a warning sign.
Meanwhile, layoffs across the economy remained historically low, suggesting that workers continue to enjoy an unusual degree of job security.
Before the pandemic, JOLTS indicators typically moved together in predictable ways, but there has since been an unusual decoupling. While the level of job openings is 15% higher than in February 2020 before the pandemic, the level of quits is almost exactly the same, hires are 6% lower, and layoffs and discharges are 23% lower.
Hires are lower than pre-pandemic levels in almost every sector, except healthcare, where openings are up 35% and hires are up 19%. That sector has been an extraordinary engine of growth over the past year, adding over 750K net new jobs. It is a sector where workers and job seekers have retained much of the leverage they gained during the pandemic, where jobs are unlikely to be automated, and where demographic trends suggest that hiring will remain strong in the coming decade.
Take a tour through the JOLTS report in ZipRecruiter charts.
