Another JOLT: Jobs Opening Smash Expectations, Despite Another Drop In Number Of Hires
Another month, another whopping beat by the BLS JOLTS job openings report.
One month after the April JOLTS report came out with a whopping 9-sigma beat to estimates, when it showed that in April the US added a whopping 731K job openings to 7.618 million (and up 520K from a year ago), smashing estimates of 6.9 million, moments ago the BLS reported that in May, the number of total job openings printed at 7.594 million, almost as if it was designed to post another improvement from last month's downward revised 7.585MM (from 7.618MM), and once again smashed estimates of 7.296MM.
While not as historic as last month's record 9-sigma beat, today's print was still a solid 2-sigma beat to the median estimate.
It was also the 5th consecutive beat of estimates and 8th in the past 10!
Where did the openings come from? According to the BLS,the notable increase came from an increase in wholesale trade (+71,000), but as can be seen from the table below, there were also increases in manufacturing and leisure and hospitality; on the other side, openings dropped in financial services, and private education.
Notably, unlike last month's record increase in Professional and Business service job openings in April, May's increase for the category was a tame 12K to 1.485 million. Also of note, Federal government dropped by 14K to 83K, the second lowest print of 2026 and not much above the record low hit last August, even as the total number of government job openings rose driven by an increase in state and local.
The continued strength in job openings prints, coupled with the modest increase in unemployed workers means that after 9 months of labor surplus, we now have a second consecutive month of more job openings than unemployed workes, and in May the surplus was 287K, the biggest surplus since Jan 2025, and a reversal to the "deficit" regime observed since last July.
The latest JOLTS report also means that after falling back to 0.9x in March, in April the ratio of job openings rose over 1.0x and was the highest since January 2025.
But while the job openings number was very strong for another month, this month we saw continued weakness in hires and barely any improvement in quits, In May, the number of Quits dropped to 5.170MM from 5.215MM, again approaching the post covid lows; quits - or the "take his job and shove it" indicator - rose modestly to 3.065MM from 3.043MM, and followed the 183K plunge in March.
It goes without saying that a surge in job openings while hires are dropping, and few people are voluntarily leaving their jobs, while payrolls are growing (as we will find out on Thursday), leads one to scratch their head just what is going on here, besides data massaging of course.
In any case, since this hires number feeds directly into the payrolls calculations (after netting out separations) this explains why the May payrolls report surged by 172K, even if the JOLTS implied number is barely a third as strong.
Overall, this was a very strong JOLTS report, and shows that after some significant weakness in late 2025, US labor market has continued to stabilize throughout 2026. Of course, the report also lags the payrolls report by a month, which is why it gives us little insight into what Thurday's jobs report will be, although if the hires less separations dataset is any indication, it suggests that the June print will come well below expectations.