by Calculated Risk on 7/09/2019 10:09:00 AM

Notes: In May there were 7.449 million job openings, and, according to the May Employment report, there were 5.888 million unemployed. So, for the fifteenth consecutive month, there were more job openings than people unemployed. Also note that the number of job openings has exceeded the number of hires since January 2015 (over 4 years).

From the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary

The number of job openings was little changed at 7.3 million on the last business day of May, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the month, hires fell to 5.7 million and separations edged down to 5.5 million. Within separations, the quits and the layoffs and discharges rates were unchanged at 2.3 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively. ...

The number of quits was little changed in May at 3.4 million. The quits rate was 2.3 percent.
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 May, the most recent employment report was for June.

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 decreased in May to 7.323 million from 7.372 million in April.

The number of job openings (yellow) are up 3% year-over-year.

Quits are up 2% year-over-year. These are voluntary separations. (see light blue columns at bottom of graph for trend for "quits").

Job openings remain at a high level, and quits are still increasing year-over-year. This was a solid report.