Reclaiming Common Sense

The August Jobs Report was released last week, today it was the July JOLTS report.

July Records for Hires, Quits, and Separations


The July Employment Situation data was better than it was reported. We have 1.451 million more full-time jobs and 667,000 fewer part-time jobs than last July. We have more people working this July than last July and more than have ever worked.  Full-time jobs spiked, and unemployment rose slightly from the June 2019 level. Even so, the unemployment rate was the lowest for the month of July since July 1969. This column has published five articles based on the Jobs Report data:

These articles were based off the Current Population Survey (CPS) jobs and unemployment data and the Current Employment Statistics (CES) Worker and Wage data. The JOLTS, Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey, data is a third data set. What is often missed is that last week's current Jobs report is for August while this week's current JOLTS report is for July.


We saw record July levels of Hires, Quits, and total separations. The "headline" number is the job openings level. Last year we had 7.772 million job openings. This year we only had 7.471 million. The most job openings were in Trade, Transportation, and Utilities (TTU,) Education and Health Services (EHS) Professional Business Services (PBS,) and Leisure and Hospitality (LAH)


The four sectors with the most Hires, Quits, and total Separations are the same as those with the most Job Openings. The most Hires were in PBS, LAH, TTU, and EHS. The sectors with the most separations were LAH, PBS, TTU, and EHS. The sectors with the most Quits were LAH, TTU, PBS, and EHS. The graphics can be found here.


We saw month to month and July to July jumps in Job Openings in five sectors. The three sectors that had job opening growth were Mining and Logging (M/L,) Construction, Manufacturing, EHS and Information (IT.) We saw month to month increases in job openings and July to July declines in TTU, LAH, Other Services (OS,) and Government. 


Hires, Separations, and Quits rose month to month and July to July in Financial Services (FIRE,) and Professional Business Services. We almost always see peak hires, quits, and separations for a given year during the month of August as Summer work fades.


This data was solid. There were records set for the month of July. Separations were up month to month and July to July in eight sectors. Quits were up month to month and July to July in six sectors. Th trend is our friend.


It's the Economy.