The JOLTS report on labor is noteworthy and helpful because it breaks down the jobs market into a more granular look at hiring, firing, and voluntary quits. Its drawback is that the data only goes back less than 20 years, so from the point of view of looking at the economic cycle, it has to be taken with a large dose of salt.
With that disclaimer out of the way, Tuesday’s JOLTS report for December was mixed, and for the second month in a row was soft relative to the strength of the overall jobs gain for that month. With the exception of one new high, the other series are off their best levels, and two continued to decline, with the good news being that there were generally positive revisions in the previous month’s data:
- Quits declined for the 4th month in a row, and are about 5% off peak.
- Hires rose and are only 0.3% off their peak set two months ago.
- Total separations declined and are off 4% from August.
- Job openings made a new all time high.
- Layoffs and Discharges declined (a good thing), but remain up about 10% from their recent low last March.
Let’s update where the report might tell us we are in the cycle.
First, below is a graph, averaged quarterly through the fourth quarter, of the *rates* of hiring, quits, layoffs, and openings as a percentage of the labor force since the inception of the series (layoffs and discharges are inverted at the 3% level, so that higher readings show fewer layoffs than normal, and lower readings show more):
