Job openings ticked up in January while layoffs declined, according to government data released Friday.
The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed 6.9 million positions were available at the beginning of the year, along with 1.6 million layoffs and discharges. That’s a tad better than anticipated: Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had estimated about 6.8 million openings for the month and roughly 1.8 million layoffs and discharges.
Job openings picked up in January across the finance and insurance sector, with 184,000 available positions, the data showed. Healthcare and social assistance similarly saw openings increase by 150,000. However, openings declined in professional and business services by 190,000.
The hiring rate was 3.3%, while the quits rate — seen as a barometer of workers’ confidence in finding new work — remained at 2%.
The data comes as economists are watching for any signs of life — or decline — in an otherwise stagnant labor market. In December, job openings slipped to the lowest level since 2020, at 6.6 million positions, only for payroll growth to surge in January with 126,000 new positions. Though that suggested the labor market may be stabilizing, the narrative was challenged by February’s bleak jobs report, which showed an unexpected loss of 96,000 jobs.
Private data from the global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, meanwhile, had laid out a dismal picture for January, recording more than 108,000 job cut announcements amid “the lowest January hiring on record.” Though layoff announcements cooled in February’s data, plans to bring on new workers still remained depressed compared to a year ago.
As for what took place last year, annual estimates showed average job openings at 7.1 million, a decrease of 571,000 openings from 2024. The annual hires level, at 63 million, also decreased by 1.5 million from the prior year. Layoffs increased by 1.2 million during the same period.