Reclaiming Common Sense

 If Good News is Recorded and Not Reported Did It Really Happen?

Record September Hires, Quits, and Total Separations


Last week we received the October Jobs Report. This week we received the September JOLTS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey Data. That's the way that it works. We have had elevated levels of Job Openings, Hires, Quits, and Total Separations for the same four sectors for a protracted period of time: Professional Business Services (PBS,) Leisure and Hospitality (LAH,) Education and Health Services (EHS,) and Trade, Transportation, and Utilities (TTU.) Three of those sectors are three of the four lowest paid sectors. What happened this September?


We set a September Record for Quits, Separations and Hires. Peak quit month is August. We set an all-time high last month. September drops off. That happened this year.

  • Leisure and Hospitality (LAH) had the most Quits, followed by TTU, PBS, and EHS
  • All four sectors dropped month to month and rose September to September
  • LAH, PBS, TTU, and EHS also recorded the most Separations.
  • All four sectors dropped month to month and rose September to September.
  • TTU, LAH, PBS, and EHS had the most Hiring (Hires.)
  • LAH and EHS saw month to month drops in hiring while TTU and PBS saw month to month hires
  • All Four Sectors saw hires increase October to October.
  • Information also saw the same month to month drops in Hires, Quits, and Total Separations.


Job Openings dropped month to  month and September to September. Guess which four sectors had the most job openings.

  • TTU, PBS, EHS, and LAH had the most job openings during September.
  • Job Openings dropped month to month for TTU, PBS, EHS, and LAH
  • Job openings rose September to September for TTU, PBS, EHS, and LAH.
  • Information (IT) saw a rise month to month and September to September in Job Openings.


People are quitting low paying jobs. Employers are having a problem filling low paying jobs. The Advance September Wages and Workers data revealed that three of the four /h)lowest paying sectors are LAH ($16.08/h,) TTU ($23.17/h,) EHS ($27.18/h.) Other services came in at $24.77/h and IT came in at the highest at $41.18/h.


We are not having record setting monthly "jobs data" because we are having record setting quits data. Even though the September data was revised higher with the release of the October jobs report we had 6.009 million hires and 6.172 million total separations. This is the problem with comparing JOLTS data with the CES worker data. It is also a problem to compare the JOLTS data with the CPS jobs data. September was a record September for FT jobs. Continuing claims were low during the middle of September. You might as well com. You may as well compare the studio temperatures in Seattle, WA, Syracuse, NY, San Francisco, CA and Sturgeon Bay, WI during the middle of September.


Record September Quits, Separations, and Hires indicate strength in the economy. People are willing to quit in order to find a better job. (The month to month graphics can be found here, The All-time graphs can be found here.)


It's the Economy.