by Calculated Risk on 9/11/2012 10:00:00 AM

From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary

There were 3.7 million job openings on the last business day of July, little changed from June, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
...
The level of total nonfarm job openings in July was up from 2.4 million at the end of the recession in June 2009.
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In July, the quits rate was unchanged for total nonfarm, total private, and government. The number of quits was 2.2 million in July, up from 1.8 million at the end of the recession in June 2009. ... Quits are generally voluntary separations initiated by the employee. Therefore, the quits rate can serve as a measure of workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs.

The following graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (dark blue), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.

This series started in December 2000.

Note: The difference between JOLTS hires and separations is similar to the CES (payroll survey) net jobs headline numbers. This report is for July, the most recent employment report was for August.

Click on graph for larger image.

Notice that hires (dark blue) and total separations (red and light blue columns stacked) are pretty close each month. When the blue line is above the two stacked columns, the economy is adding net jobs - when it is below the columns, the economy is losing jobs.

Jobs openings decreased in July to 3.664 million, down from 3.722 million in June. The number of job openings (yellow) has generally been trending up, and openings are up about 9% year-over-year compared to July 2011.

Quits increased slightly in July, and quits are up about 8% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations and more quits might indicate some improvement in the labor market. (see light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits").

All current employment graphs