by Calculated Risk on 10/24/2013 11:15:00 AM

From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary

There were 3.9 million job openings on the last business day of August, little changed from July, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The hires rate (3.3 percent) and separations rate (3.2 percent) also were little changed in August. ...
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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. Layoffs and discharges are involuntary separations initiated by the employer. ... The quits rate (not seasonally adjusted) rose over the 12 months ending in August for total nonfarm and total private but was unchanged for government.

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 August, the most recent employment report was for September.

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. This is a measure of turnover.  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 increased in August to 3.883 million from 3.808 million in July (revised up from 3.689 million).  The number of job openings (yellow) is up 6.9% year-over-year compared to August 2012. 

Quits were up in August, and quits are up about 10.5% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (see light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits").

Not much changes month-to-month in this report - and the data is noisy month-to-month, but the general trend suggests a gradually improving labor market.