More Job Openings Than Layoffs Last Month

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Recent job fair in San Francisco.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been compiling interesting data on the number of job openings and job turnover each month.  It’s dubbed JOLTS, a handy acronym for Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

As of January 31, 2012 there were almost 3.5 million job openings in the U.S.  During the same month more than 4 million people were hired for jobs and almost 4 million people either quit, retired, were fired or laid off.

The data isn’t broken down by state, but it is by region.  The Idaho Department of Labor currently has 2,317 jobs posted on its searchable website.  That doesn’t include jobs that are posted through other sites like Monster, Craigslist or Indeed.

Here’s a look at the total job openings in the U.S. and the western and mid-western regions.

[spreadsheet key=”0AiLU6Cs5LWZIdER0cnpic0FjMUp1Y240RGpGU2JrTGc” source=”Bureau of Labor Statistics” sheet=0 filter=0 paginate=0 sortable=0]

* Jan. 2012 data is preliminary

** West includes: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming

*** Midwest includes: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin

The data doesn’t explain what kind of job openings these are.  We know the general field they’re in (construction, manufacturing, retail, government, etc.), but we don’t know if they’re temporary jobs, high-paying jobs or seasonal.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports while January’s job opening figures haven’t significantly changed since September 2011, the Bureau notes job openings have increased 45 percent since June 2009.

“Although the number of job openings remained below the 4.3 million openings when the recession began in December 2007, the number of job openings has increased 45 percent since the end of the recession in June 2009.” – BLS

As for layoffs, JOLTS data shows more than 2 million people lost their job in January.  The largest share of those layoffs nationally were in the trade, transportation, and utilities sectors.  The western region (which includes Idaho) reports more than 525,000 layoffs or discharges.  (BLS classifies layoffs or discharges as involuntary separations initiated by the employer.)

[spreadsheet key=”0AiLU6Cs5LWZIdGMwZDI0eDRobUlieGg0WWxmNWZ2TkE” source=”Bureau of Labor Statistics” sheet=0 filter=0 paginate=0 sortable=0]

* Jan. 2012 data is preliminary

Like the job opening data, the layoff data doesn’t explain how many of these jobs were seasonal or temporary.