What Is the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS)?
The job openings and labor turnover survey (JOLTS) is a monthly report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labor counting job vacancies and separations, including the number of workers voluntarily quitting employment.
The BLS surveys more than 20,000 businesses and government offices to estimate the numbers of U.S. job vacancies, hires, and separations included in the monthly jobs report. The job separations numbers are subdivided into three categories: quits, or voluntary resignations; layoffs and discharges; and other separations, which include deaths and retirements.
The number of vacancies is a widely followed indicator of labor demand, while the quits rate is partly a function of employment demand. Job hires and separations can be used to gauge labor turnover.
JOLTS supplements the BLS monthly jobs report, which estimates the number of U.S. payrolls and the unemployment rate. JOLTS data is released nearly a month after the monthly jobs report for the same reference period.
Understanding JOLTS
JOLTS data is published monthly in seasonally adjusted as well as unadjusted form, subdivided by region, industry, and size of the workforce.
To produce JOLTS, the BLS surveys a representative sample of 20,700 nonfarm business and government employers from a total of more than 9.4 million.
Respondents answer questions about their businesses’ total employment, job openings, hires, and separations.
Job openings include all vacancies, including those for part-time or temporary employment, at the end of the reference month meeting the following criteria:
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The position exists, and there is work available in that role.
The job could start within 30 days.
The employer is actively recruiting outside candidates for the job opening.
JOLTS employment estimates are benchmarked, or ratio adjusted, monthly to the current employment estimates of the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey used to produce the monthly jobs report, and the JOLTS-to-CES employment ratio is then used to adjust other JOLTS data. JOLTS data are also revised in line with CES on an annual basis. It takes about a year for a new business to show up in the government database used to select the survey sample for JOLTS.
The BLS began collecting JOLTS data in 1999 and publishing survey results in 2002.
