Three BLS charts on quits and hires offer strong evidence the labor markets nearly back to normal. Other charts tell a different story. 
Five Key Ideas
- Quits and hires are actual events (within the bounds of BLS accuracy).
- Hires and separations (layoffs and quits) are hard data, in contrast to openings that may not be real.
- Quits reflect the propensity to job hop looking for better offers but also retirement. Quits have fallen to pre-pandemic levels.
- Openings are down from a record 11.77 million to a still very elevated 8.86 million.
- Most analysts, me included, believe the number of fake openings rose during the pandemic. Hires and quits tell a much more compelling story.
Job Quits by Sector in Thousands
Quits are back to normal or near normal across the board. Leisure and hospitality is a bit above pre-pandemic levels but is in the pre-pandemic range.
Labor Leverage Ratio Nonfarm and Private
The Labor Leverage Ratio (LLR) is the number of quits divided by the number of discharges, firings, and layoffs initiated by employers.
The BLS notes “the quits rate can serve as a measure of workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs.” The LLR is a refinement to the quits rate.
There is no cost to posting ghost jobs. And the benefits are obvious: Employers can placate overworked employees, keep them motivated, give an impression of growth, and just in case.
Openings are not real. Quits and the Labor Leverage Ratio provide a much more compelling story that the market has stabilized.
But there is another side of the story.
Is Your Hourly Pay or Salary Keeping Up With Inflation?
The Atlanta Fed has a wage tracker data series. I added CPI information to see who is and isn’t keeping up with inflation.
For discussion, please see Is Your Hourly Pay or Salary Keeping Up With Inflation?
Over 100% of the Increase in Employment Since 2020 is Foreign Born
US-born employment is lower now than it was in January of 2020. Foreign-born workers make up over 100 percent of the employment gains.
Please note that Over 100% of the Increase in Employment Since 2020 is Foreign Born
Not only are foreigners providing jobs, state and local governments have been adding huge numbers of jobs just to deal with immigrants.
Big Explosion of Government and Social Assistance Jobs
President Biden is bragging about job growth in 2023. But he doesn’t say where those jobs are.
Although quits suggest the labor markets have stabilized, the source of jobs suggests something else.
For discussion please see Big Explosion of Government and Social Assistance Jobs in 2023 to Help Migrants
The BLS jobs report is on Friday.
The consensus estimate from Bloomberg is 190,000, with 150,000 private payrolls. That’s an estimate for 40,000 more government jobs.
The growth in government jobs to handle the immigration surge offers compelling evidence the jobs market is not as strong as economists and Biden say.
And you know who will pay for those government jobs. You will, one way or another.
Thanks for looking into data, reports are very misleading
The Trumphoiles might send SPX higher. Job openings, hires, separations and quits might rise after a higher low in 2024. The 25 percentile, the brown parameter, Trump crown jewels, might rise above zero for the first time in 25 years and beat the CPI.
I am not so sure about all this data, and information being fed to us by the Fed.
Quits are quits, and they will happen as the sun rises. There are all sorts of reasons, but some are more detrimental to the economy and thus jobs.
Hires are similar to quits, in that they are indeed hard data, if on the books. That will be an issue, and maybe a rather large one moving forward.
I guess at this point in the recession, it really doesn’t matter now does it? When things get so skewed as they have become, it begs the questions: What exactly does a “Normal” Hire/Fire/Quit number in total and by industry, look like now days?
Seriously, with the differences in the economies today, a bank going under is ;just another day at the office, so who cares about an auto dealer, dentist, clothing store, specialty store etc. Perhaps those that frequent them (perhaps not those that get dragged along). Multiply that by 10-15 Instances per Family, and you’re talking a massive sea change of expected activity and trends alike, in all sorts of locations and places.
BLS Data on “the quits rate” Hides Behind the word: “can” so therefore it’s meaningless for any interpretation of said data. It’s simply unusable.
There is a massive cost in “Ghost Jobs” just as with an hidden information/data and especially if will be used in analysis of Any Kind. Just like with Openings that are not real. Motives of all sorts are instantly being thought about.
We are so wound up, bound up, and screwed up at this point, that data is starting to look basically meaningless, after careful and thoughtful analysis, it’s still all over the place.
The inputs and therefore outputs, have zero consistency or fact based explanations of the data that was fed into them. This has been going on for a few years now, so it’s really far off of the mark it belongs on. Major decisions have been made, and are still being made with this massively skewed data.
It’s coming…
To those who believe Boomers had an easy go of it and deserve to get their accumulated life’s efforts get flushed down the toilet, this is what I respond to your desires.
Lucky you, as the government is running out of peoples equity to piss away on freebees for all those Social spending trophies, well guess what? You are going to have to learn to stand on your own two legs. That is going to come as quite a shock.
So yes kiddies there is far too little equity left in support of far too much debt.
You won’t be missed
The boomers took out a loan to build the bathroom, bought a Chinese-made toilet, hired an immigrant to do the work for pennies, sat comfortably down on the toilet, pushed the handle and are now wondering why the water is swirling in the bowl
As I suggested, lucky you are going to grow up whether you like it or not.
Do not fear becoming an adult, it is part of life. Just do not wait until you are fifty and learn that your life has been stolen from you by your ideology.
I am lucky, I’ve been born into a system that is crumbling, which gives me an opportunity to build something that will last instead of bartering the labor of my descendants to subsidize my second home
Don’t worry…you’re on the menu next. Soylent Green to feed the young-uns. Lots of protein from Boomers…since they overate and stripped the planet of lots of its resources and polluted much of the rest.
There is no equity except for substance. Everything else is only numbers on a ledger. What many people call equity is just a number.
Nah, they’re going to power-wash your shite off the planet. Boomers took a dump on the world and expect to get rewarded for destroying things that could have been put to better use. Nobody feeling sorry for the boomers that tried to screw the next three generations…now asking for more and more, while dropping like flies from the workforce and will be dropping like flies as they pass on for the next decade. Most Boomers are out of shape, overweight and have / are getting cancer and serious heart and other issues. Karma is a BYATCH for those that wrecked the world.
Like a new player continuously sifting through the remaining cards in a game of solitaire, one can make themself believe a winning card will come up in the deck as long as they keep looking, but if there are no more winning cards it only prolongs the truth.
One can do the same with economic data.
There’s no reason to have any more “ghost jobs” posted now than any other time in history, other than to assume there are more now to avoid the fact that the data doesn’t suit an agenda.
.Though the turnover data is interesting and definitely has empirical value, the “Ghost job” logic is assumed.
.
Retail Quits. Between 2019 and 2020, during covid, quits plunged from 600 to 300, that’s 50%. After Nov 2021, when the Nasdaq peaked, quits dropped 50% from 715 to 363, at a lower speed.The retail sector is the most vulnerable. Small retail chain stores
shut their doors or go bankrupt first. At the bottom of the recession the skeleton workers don’t quit. If the retail sleaze meter is down already 50%, what will happen next.
Job openings, hires, separations and quits are all trending down. Job openings lurch down the most. They already breached the 2019 high, ex job opening bc it’s fake. It’s an ugly chart. The Atlanta Fed wage growth is uglier. For over twenty five years the brown parameter, the 25 percentile, accumulated negative growth. The poor deflated the most, though lately they have deflated less. China worked for free in the 80’s and the 90’s. From Dec 1993 NAFTA. The chart starts in Jan 1997 and that’s good enough.
The poor competed with new immigrants and foreign labor. Recession will stop the illegal immigrants, not the $31B for a wall.
But Fed beige book says economic activity went UP.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/beigebook202402-summary.htm
“Economic activity increased slightly, on balance, since early January, with eight Districts reporting slight to modest growth in activity, three others reporting no change, and one District noting a slight softening. Consumer spending, particularly on retail goods, inched down in recent weeks. Several reports cited heightened price sensitivity by consumers and noted that households continued to trade down and to shift spending away from discretionary goods. Activity in the leisure and hospitality sector varied by District and segment; while air travel was robust overall, demand for restaurants, hotels, and other establishments softened due to elevated prices, as well as to unusual weather conditions in certain regions. Manufacturing activity was largely unchanged, and supply bottlenecks normalized further. Nevertheless, delivery delays for electrical components continued. Ongoing shipping disruptions in the Red Sea and Panama Canal did not generally have a notable impact on businesses during the reporting period, although some contacts reported rising pressures on international shipping costs…”
frog cooking.
There’s a big difference between economic activity and productive growth. Hiring people to dole out taxpayer money to immigrants is not necessarily productive growth.
Vehicle Sales went up significantly in 2023 vs 2022. In most cases, REAL products went up in the US in 2023 vs 2022. That’s even with a Strike in US Automotive plants.
The end is near. Consumers are tapped out. Wage inflation is out of control. Government is tapped out. Inflation is rampant. The fed must raise interest rates but they know that would crash the housing market, stock market, car market, banks, and spike the federal deficit.
Good. Crash it all. 4 years of crushing inflation deserves 4 years of reverse deflation…… take us right back to 2019 prices and/or 2020 covid lows
USA has 24 million do nothing government employees and a severe labor shortage in the qualified department. A 50% layoff could push a quick 12 million people into respectable wealth creating jobs.l
Dumbness. 2020 Covid Lows had EXTREME lack of activity and many people out of jobs. Clearly ya don’t know how economies work.
Many you’re clueless aren’t ya? Please wear your sandwich board and walk around times square with “The End is Nigh!”…just like worthless people do…been saying that for decades…still nonsense.
Mish says State and Local Governments have been adding huge numbers of jobs just to deal with Immigrants.
Does that mean if the Wall had been completed–Unemployment would now be higher?
I think we would have less government jobs and that’s a good thing.
If Trump started booting dreamers and migrant workers we would have a massive surge of inflation.
Schumer offered Trump a fantastic deal on the wall, $31 billion for a wall in return for amnesty for dreamers.
Trump turned it down. It was idiotic. We need good policy too, not just a wall.
Fk little chucky Schumer. There isn’t a deal to be made with that un-American scoundrel and grifter
“Amen…and A-women” –
Chuckles The Clown
Thanks for the detailed data to show a more accurate picture of the jobs situation.
Sure, More coming up on Friday.
Nice post but it is missing the overall labor participation rate (down to 62.5) and the number of growing social security enrollments (at 71m). Adding those two data bits will present a clearer picture of what’s happening that most educated people already know. Too many people retiring and not enough young (native) people. So how will the labor gap be filled?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART/
And the most important question, how do we profit from this labor shortage mess? No solution = high inflation.
They, not quite sure who they is at this point, think flying in, busing in, welcoming in illegals from all over the world, well at some point they will get on the books and pay into social security right? Right? LOL
A total shit show
You still don’t get it do you. Immigrants, legal or otherwise, WILL continue to come to the U.S. because there will always be jobs for them because there is need. The imaginary wall Trump didn’t build didn’t stop anything. The bigots and racists here see immigrants and whine and complain and demonize them.
I see immigrants and I see:
1. These people need to be trained, is a company like UTI that provides training in skills trades like aviation mechanics, and health care going to make a killing.
2. These people need to learn English, perhaps a firm like Duolingo can help. Will they make a killing?
3. These people will eventually open bank accounts, investment accounts, etc. Lots of money to be made there too in places like TROW and others. I need to find out which companies are reaching out so I can invest and profit because THEY are the future, not you.
I could go on but I’m too busy planning for profits while you’re too busy whining. To each their own.
Illegals have been coming into the Americas since 1492…they just claimed land they didn’t own for themselves. Now the people who stole the land from the original inhabitants are complaining…because people are coming into “Their Land”. They HAVE been coming during the Potato Famine…fleeing religious persecution in England and Holland and Germany…coming in from France and trapping Furs…Plenty fleeing multiple World Wars…The Immigration has NEVER stopped.
You just cryin’ because THIS group of immigrants speaks different languages than you do…stop whining…they work harder than you do…and ain’t NO US workers want to work in slaughterhouses to get your chicken nuggets or Burger meat so you can go through a drive through. Nobody from the US, for more than one generation, wants to do back breaking labor in the fields to pick vegetables or other simple jobs that require tons our outdoor work in crazy hot temperatures.
I have commented on that many times. I have expected the rise in unemployment in the next recession would be historically low.
“I gotta get mine. Nothing else matters. F you and furure generations. F borders and laws and anything that keeps me from getting MORE. I need more. Ponzis and frauds and illegals and anything preventing me from getting mine and getting MORE is bullshit. I need MORE. I will do anything to get it. So stop whining. Stop history. Stop reality. Stop logic. Stop complaining. Stop anything that defies me from getting MINE and what I want.”
Yes that about sums it up in duhmerica today.
100% accurate
Boomers say it all the time. “I got mine.”
Rapaciously greedy. Horrible people.
Hypocrites. I love seeing them cringe in fear every time the financial outlook declines and threatens their life positions. I was hoping COVID would thin their ranks but it decimated the lost generation instead.
People of the lie who ate the Frankfurt School “intellectual fast food” hook line and sinker.
Unprecedented smugness never seen in old people before. Vietnam draft dodgers turned war mongers. 60 years of TV programming did a number on them.
Lol…..I’m the victim…..the boomers screwed me. Blah blah blah.
Seems like everyone points the finger at someone else for the reason that thier life situation isn’t what they expected. Conservatives blame Liberals, Liberals blame Conservatives, Boomers blame Gen Z, while Gen Z points the finger right back. Oh and the Communists and Anarchists blame pretty much everyone who isn’t one of them.
While this bickering is going on the politicians and the well connected are laughing all the way to the bank. You’ve played right into thier hands.
Stop wasting your precious energy with finger pointing. Use your energy to better your life however you see fit.
By the way, before you go thinking I’m just another Boomer, I’m not. I’m right at the border between Gen X and the Millenials.
Agree. Well said Woodsie.
Fox news has the rogue’s gallery of war hypocrites. Draft dodgers like Kudlow, Huckabee, Hume, Bill O’Reily have all found homes on Fox. You overgeneralize about baby boomers but many are hypocrites and despicable. Our Presidents are proud dodgers-what does that say about America?
Been that way since the beginning of time. Like how Europeans came to North America, killed the natives, stole their land and resources, enslaved Africans and “built” America all by ‘themselves’ with Chinese labor.
And now there is “shock” that others are coming to do the exact same? Yes, they will come and they will take it ALL, how come you haven’t figured it out yet? History repeats, reality happens.
We have always lived in a world where one group preys against another. It won’t stop today nor tomorrow even with Trump as the ‘savior.’ Only when everything is depleted will it stop so in the meantime don’t worry, be happy.
“It’s a big club and you ain’t in it.”
George Carlin
While this is true, one can still have a good life if they ignore the BS, and focus on bettering themselves.
NO ONE WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE BETTER BUT YOU!!!!
How many times in your life has bitching and moaning about your current life situation actually improved your life situation?
I’d wager never…….
Yep. Politicians/leaders have been selling hate against “others” forever because it works. You can see that in the comments section here. Way too many weak minded, cult followers spewing hate and believing false narratives in an attempt to find someone to blame for their own shortcomings.
Too bad they don’t focus their attention on working hard to improve their own lives.
Whiny little man blames:
“Way too many weak minded, cult followers spewing hate and believing false narratives in an attempt to find someone to blame for their own shortcomings.”
But blames “Politicians/leaders have been selling hate against “others” forever…”
Yet does the same thing himself. Nah, Bruh, get a move on and stop whining.
You just described human nature. It’s as old as time.