JOLTS Job Openings

JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) reports the number of open, unfilled positions across the economy, plus hires, quits, and layoffs. It runs about a month behind NFP, so it's read less for immediate reaction and more as a structural read on how tight the labor market actually is.

A high openings number relative to the number of unemployed people looking for work signals a tight labor market -- workers have leverage, wages tend to rise, and that can feed into the same inflation-and-rates chain as NFP's wage data. The quits rate is watched too: workers quitting in large numbers signals confidence they can find something better, a sign of labor market strength.

If job openings fall from 9.0 million to 8.0 million over a few months while layoffs stay low, that's usually read as a gradual, orderly cooling -- employers posting fewer new roles without yet cutting existing staff. That's a different (and generally less alarming) signal than openings falling AND layoffs rising together, which would suggest the labor market is cooling faster and more painfully.