Economic Jolt: Job Openings and Labor Turnover April 2010

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released their latest monthly read of job availability and labor turnover (JOLT) showing that, on a year-over-year basis, private non-farm job “openings” increased 27.75%, job “hires” increased 3.98%, job “layoffs and discharges” decreased 35.54% and job quits increased 9.23%.

Job “openings” (click chart below for larger version), the reports most leading “demand side” indicator, appears to be in the process of defining a bottom of sorts vacillating monthly between gain and loss but not dropping near the low levels seen during early 2009.



It’s important to understand that job “quits” are included as a component of the “separations” data series as “quitting” is a valid means of workers “separating” from employers but their inclusion tends to create an overall procyclical trend in what would otherwise be logically thought of as a countercyclical process (i.e. downturn leads to increase in separations not decrease).