There were 11.3 million job openings in the US in January, which is down 1.6% from December but up 55.7% year over year, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The data includes annual updates and CNN reported the December job openings number was updated to a record high.
Job openings fell by 288,000 in “accommodation and food services” and by 132,000 in “transportation, warehousing and utilities.” However, they rose month-over-month in “other services,” up 136,000, and in durable goods manufacturing, up by 85,000.
Separations were little changed, rising by just 0.3% month over month. They were up 17.1% year over year. Looking at just the “quits” component of separations, quits fell by 151,000 to 4.3 million in January from December. Quits decreased by 69,000 in retail trade and by 20,000 in “information” but increased by 30,000 in “finance and insurance.”
Daniel Zhao, senior economist and lead data scientist at Glassdoor’s Economic Research team, noted in a tweet that quits are still 23% above their pre-pandemic level.
The BLS reported quits reached a record high of 47.8 million for full-year 2021.
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