Job Openings Drop After Huge Upward Revision As Hires, Quits Unexpectedly Plunge To Six Year Low

Job Openings Drop After Huge Upward Revision As Hires, Quits Unexpectedly Plunge To Six Year Low A few weeks ago, the BLS reported that January job openings unexpectedly soared by 400K, the biggest increase since November 2024, to 6.946MM, the highest since last October. Well, it turns out the jump was even higher than that because moments ago, the BLS published the latest February print, and while that number came in line with estimates, at 6.882MM, or just shy of the 6.890MM estimate, it was a big drop from January, which was revised massively higher by another 300K to 7.240MM from 6.946MM. In other words, the January job openings surge after the revision was a massive 690K, the biggest one month increase since Sept 2022! In this light the February print, while a drop from January, was still a solid improvement from the January five year low of 6.550 million. According to the BLS, the number of job openings decreased in accommodation and food services (-211,000) and in mining and logging (-12,000). Declines were also observed in Construction, Manufacturing,Information, Finance, Private Education and Government; these were offset by modest increases in Professional and business services as well as  Other Services. The silver lining: the collapse in government and federal job openings continues. The sharp revision to January and then the extension of job opening declines in February meant that after almost reversing in January (-128K), February saw a surge in labor supply number as there were 689K fewer job openings than unemployed workers. It also means that after rising back to 1.0x in January, in February the ratio of job openings to unemployed dropped back to 0.9x where it has been since last summer. But while the job openings number was in line, previous month's revision gimmicks notwithstanding, the real surprise in this month's print was the number of Quits and Hires, both of which tumbled to 6 year lows.  The number of hires decreased to 4.8 million (-498,000) in February and was down by 387,000 over the year. The hires rate decreased over the month to 3.1 percent. This was the lowest hires rate since April 2020 when it was also 3.1 percent.  In February, the number of hires decreased in accommodation and food services (-178,000) and in construction (-88,000).  Since this number feeds directly into the payrolls calculations (after netting out separations) this explains why the March payrolls report was such a total disaster.  As for quits, in February, the number of quits plunged by 157K to 2.974MM, the lowest since 2020, led by decreases in accommodation and food services (-119,000), wholesale trade (-35,000), and federal government (-6,000). Quits increased in nondurable goods manufacturing (+21,000).  Overall, this was a messy JOLTS report and aside from the now revised away January spike, it confirms that the US labor market continues to deteriorate slowly with every passing month.  Tyler Durden Tue, 03/31/2026 - 10:33