Written by Steven Hansen
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 private non-farm job opening growth rate again improved slightly. The current rate is quite high – so it follows that the high employment growth rate should continue.
- 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 rate insignificantly improved from a downward revised 22.2% (October) to 22.5% (November). The year-over-year growth of the unadjusted non-farm private jobs opening rate (percent of job openings compared to size of workforce) improved slightly from 18.8% to 21.4%. Overall, the data is continuing to predict slightly improving employment growth.
Unadjusted Private Jobs Openings from JOLTS – Year-over-Year (blue line) compared to Change from Last Month (red line)
- The graph below looks at rate of growth for job openings. The rate of growth is quite high, and is continuing on an upward growth trend.
- The market expected seasonally adjusted jobs openings at 4.825 million to 5.010 million (consensus 4.875 M) versus the headline 4.973 million.
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. JOLTS is showing a long term trend improvement – even with the decline this month.
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) are not predictive.
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.
Hires less Separation Rate (blue line, left axis) compared to Non-Farm Private BLS Non-farm Private (red line, right axis)
Caveats on the Use of JOLTS
This data series historically is very noisy which likely is a result of data gathering issues and/or seasonal adjustments. Therefore this series must be trended to provide any understanding of the dynamics. One of two months of good or bad data are not predictive.
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