February 2016 JOLTS Job Openings Year-over-Year Growth Rate Declined


The BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) can be used as a predictor of future jobs growth, and the predictive elements show that the year-over-year growth rate of unadjusted private non-farm job openings declined from last month. The growth rate trends marginally decelerated in the 3 month averages.

There was no market expectations published by Bloomberg this month.

  • the number of unadjusted PRIVATE jobs openings – which is the most predictive of future employment growth of the JOLTS elements – shows the year-over-year growth marginally decelerated. The year-over-year growth of the unadjusted non-farm private jobs opening rate (percent of job openings compared to size of workforce) also decelerated.
  • The graph below looks at the year-over-year rate of growth for job opening levels and rate.
  • The relevance of JOLTS to future employment is obvious from the graphic below which shows JOLTS Job Openings leading or coincident to private non-farm employment. JOLTS job openings are a good predictor of jobs growth turning points.

    Seasonally Adjusted Private Jobs Openings from JOLTS (blue line, left axis) compared to BLS Non-farm Private (red line, right axis)

    The graph below uses year-over year growth comparisons of non-seasonally adjusted non-farm private BLS data versus JOLTS Job Openings – and then compare trend lines.

    Year-over-Year Change – Seasonally Jobs Openings from JOLTS (blue line, left axis) compared to Unadjusted BLS Non-farm Private (red line, right axis)

  • The JOLTS Unadjusted Private hires rate (percent of hires compared to size of workforce) and the separations rate (percent of separations compared to size of workforce – separations are the workforce which quit or was laid off).
  • Seasonally Adjusted Hires (blue line) and Seasonally Adjusted Separation Levels (red line) – Non-Farm Private

    Please note that Econintersect has not been able use the hire rate or the separation rate (or a combination thereof) to help in understanding future jobs growth. A Philly Fed study agrees with Econintersect’s assessment. JOLTS is issued a month later than the jobs data – and correlates against one month old data. The data in the below chart shows that the JOLTS data is turning at the same points – but the JOLTS data is released one month later making this a lagging indicator.

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