Job Openings Flat in February

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) on Tuesday.

In a survey completed earlier this year, over half of Americans said they were thinking about looking for a new job in 2016. A full 25% said they were definitely going to be looking for a new job, and another 27% said it was possible they’d be looking around as well.

The key factor for 79% of these potential job-seekers is better pay. Higher titles and better job location were also sought after by 44% and 40%, respectively, of respondents. The data were reported by Indeed in January.

According the JOLTS report, there were 5.4 million job openings on the last day of February, the highest level since November 2006. Employers hired 5.4 million workers in February and 5.1 million left or otherwise lost their jobs during the month.
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The quit rate, which measures the number of people who voluntarily quit their jobs, remained roughly flat at 2.95 million, or 2.1%, up 0.1 points from January and 0.2. Quits increased month over month in health care and social assistance (up 32,000) and decreased in mining and logging (down 8,000).

The highest quit rates in February came in the leisure and hospitality industry, 4.5%, up from 4.1% in January and 3.8% in February of last year. In the accommodations and food services subcategories, the quit rate was 4.6%, up from 4.3% in January and 4.0% in February 2014.

Because the food service and hotel businesses are among the lowest paying in the country, it’s no surprise that turnover is high. But with people leaving those jobs at a rate that’s even 50% higher than quits in the also low-paying retail industry, we might conclude that they’re leaving for better paying jobs. It remains true, however, that there are more new hires in these lower-paying jobs than in other areas.

Here’s what the BLS said about job growth over the past 12 months:

Over the 12 months ending in February, hires totaled 62.1 million and separations totaled 59.4 million, yielding a net employment gain of 2.7 million. These totals include workers who may have been hired and separated more than once during the year.

Private employers hired more than 300,000 new workers in February than they did a year ago and more than 30,000 new employees than they hired in January. Federal government new hires totaled 43,000 in February, up 2,000 compared with January and up 6,000 compared with February a year ago.