The January JOLTS Report

Only one month to go before the Burea of Lying (Labor) Statistics is under new management, but we will see if they can break old habits of churning out bizarre monthly reports.  The Job Openings, and Labor Turnover report is out, covering the month of November.  As usual the response rate is about 30% so take everything with a grain of salt, actually a few cups.  The number of job openings, 8.1 million, was up around 270,000 from October, which was revised upward from the initial report, but was down around 830,000 on a year-over-year basis.  Openings in financial businesses and professional and business activities rose, while those in information technology, leisure and hospitality and government (what, governments are looking to hire fewer people!) declined.

Hires declined about 100,000 from October and have declined 300,000 since November 2023.  Contrary to the openings data, there has basically been no change for the last year in government hiring.  The leisure and hospitality industry experienced the largest growth in hires.  Total separations were down about 100,000 month-over-month and 300,000 year-over-year, with leisure and hospitality again leading the way.  Within separations, quits were down about 200,000 month-over-month and 450,000 year-over-year.  Quits are sometimes taken as an indicator of the willingness of people to leave for another job, with higher quits indicating more job availability, and easier changing.  Leisure and hospitality had the highest number of quits, as job holding and changing is high in the industry.  No one is quitting their government job and why would you–you don’t have to work, certainly not hard, you are overpaid compared to the private sector and you get phenomenal benefits, all while never having to worry about being fired.  Layoffs and firings were little changed, except again in leisure and hospitality where there was an increase of over 100,000.  (JOLTS Report)