Each month brings a new unemployment and payrolls report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Each one of those is followed by the so-called JOLTS report — this is the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary. It is from the prior month ahead of each report, so it comes with a one-month lag.

What matters here is that employees have to be willing to leave a job for the job market to be considered healthy. This is where the quits rate, followed by the job openings, come into play.

The BLS showed that job openings were up at 5.757 million on the last business day of March. That is slightly higher than the 5.608 million on the last day of February (revised higher from 5.44 million).

One issue that coincides with the lower payrolls report was that the hires rate edged lower over the month of March. That fell to 5.3 million, while the BLS represented that the separations were little changed at 5.0 million.

Some good news exists here on quits versus firings. The quits rate was 2.1%, while the layoffs and discharges rate was 1.2%. The job openings rate was also 3.9%. Job openings increased as follows:

• Professional and business services (+124,000)
• Transportation, warehousing, and  utilities (+35,000)
• Nondurable goods manufacturing (+29,000)

Job openings decreased in the following segments:

• Retail trade (-80,000)
• Educational services (-36,000)
• Wholesale trade (-35,000)

Again, it requires job holders to be willing to quit to truly mark a strong employment market. If workers are quitting, it implies that they are finding other opportunities that are promotions, better suited to their skills or maybe closer to home. The BLS said on this front:

The number of quits was little changed in March at 3.0 million. The quits rate was 2.1 percent. Over the month, the number of quits was little changed for total private and government. Quits increased in construction (+50,000) and state and local government, excluding education (+9,000). Quits decreased in finance and insurance (-38,000) and arts, entertainment, and recreation (-19,000).

Over the 12 months ending in March, the BLS showed that hires totaled 62.4 million. The separations totaled 59.6 million, yielding a net employment gain of 2.8 million.

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.