by Calculated Risk on 9/07/2016 10:09:00 AM

From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary

The number of job openings increased to 5.9 million on the last business day of July, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Hires and separations were little changed at 5.2 million and 4.9 million, respectively. ...
...
The number of quits was essentially unchanged in July 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 decreased for government (-21,000). Quits decreased in state and local government education (-25,000). The number of quits was little changed in all four regions.
emphasis added

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.


Note that hires (dark blue) and total separations (red and light blue columns stacked) are pretty close each month. This is a measure of labor market 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 July to 5.871 million from 5.643 million in June.

The number of job openings (yellow) are up 1% year-over-year.

Quits are up 9% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (see light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits").

This is solid report with job openings just above the previous record high set in April 2016.