JOLTs Job Openings

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, known as JOLTS, is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a unit of the Labor Department. It assesses unmet demand for labor using a monthly sample of about 21,000 nonfarm establishments (single workplaces outside farming). Job openings are a stock of positions open on the last business day, while hires and separations are flows over the full month. It is not a placement service with individual ads, publishes no occupation detail, and uses employment only to benchmark to CES, the larger payroll survey.

Openings count positions open on the last business day, while hires and separations cover the full reference month. National estimates appear about 1 month later at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time on preset dates, with state estimates within 2 weeks. Each release shows levels and rates for openings, hires, quits, layoffs and separations by industry, region and size class. Each new estimate is preliminary, meaning the first estimate, and the prior month is revised, while January data revises 5 years and corrections are footnoted.

Openings, hires and separations each capture a different side of labor demand and turnover.

• Job openings: unfilled posts open on the last business day with work available, start within 30 days and active outside recruiting.
• Hires: all payroll additions during the month, including new, rehired, full and part time, seasonal and recalls after 7-day layoffs.
• Quits: voluntary employee initiated separations, excluding retirements and transfers to other locations of the same firm.
• Layoffs and discharges: involuntary employer initiated separations, including layoffs, suspensions over 7 days, downsizing closures and firings for cause.
• Other separations: retirements, transfers to other locations of the same firm, disability and deaths.
• Total separations: the sum of quits, layoffs and discharges and other separations during the month.

March 2022 data released May 3, 2022 showed record tightness with 11.5 million openings and a 7.1% openings rate. That was the highest level since the series began in December 2000. Hires held at 6.7 million with a 4.5% rate while total separations rose by 239,000 to 6.3 million. Quits hit a record 4.5 million at 3.0% while layoffs held at 1.4 million at 0.9%.

Retail trade and durable goods added openings while transportation, education and federal government lost openings. Over the 12 months ending March 2022, hires totaled 77.7 million against 71.4 million separations, a net gain of just 6.3 million. Record openings with record quits and flat hires meant workers left faster than employers filled chairs, signaling unmet demand.

1. Nonresponse adjustment: missing units are reweighted within industry, region and size cells, while missing items use donor rates from similar employers.
2. Benchmarking: estimates use sample weights adjusted to CES, the larger payroll survey, so JOLTS totals track official employment.
3. Birth and death model: new and closing firms are modeled from business records, adding openings, hires and separations missed by the sample.
4. Alignment: hires minus separations is forced to match the CES monthly change, with openings rescaled by the openings to hires ratio.
5. Seasonal adjustment and rates: series use concurrent X-13ARIMA-SEATS adjustment with factors updated every month. Openings rates divide openings by employment plus openings, and hires rates divide hires by employment, times 100.
6. Illustrative example: with employment of 158,000,000 and openings of 7,100,000, the openings rate is 7.1 divided by 165.1, times 100, or about 4.3%. Hires of 5,100,000 give about 3.2%.
7. Annual estimates and reliability: annual levels sum 12 months and openings are averaged, using data without seasonal adjustment. Standard errors are published with 90% confidence.