Job Openings Little Changed at 6.9 Million in January 2026

The U.S. labor market opened 2026 with employer demand roughly steady and worker turnover subdued. The number of job openings was little changed at 6.9 million in January 2026, with the job openings rate at 4.2 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Hires were unchanged at 5.3 million and total separations were little changed at 5.1 million. JOLTS reads the labor market from the demand side and publishes a month behind the payroll report, so these figures describe January, not the most recent month on the calendar. This release also carries the survey's annual benchmark revision, which lowered the published level of job openings through much of 2025 and resets the baseline against which the January reading should be judged.

Job Openings Hold at 6.9 Million

The number and rate of job openings were little changed at 6.9 million and 4.2 percent in January. At the industry level, BLS called out a single increase: job openings in finance and insurance rose by 184,000.

Job openings are a stock counted on the last business day of the month, while hires and separations are flows accumulated across the entire month. The two are not additive, and the month-to-month difference in openings is not the difference between hiring and separations. Read on its own terms, the January openings level describes an economy where employers are neither expanding posted demand nor withdrawing it.

The Turnover Picture

In January, the number and rate of hires were unchanged at 5.3 million and 3.3 percent. Total separations were little changed at 5.1 million and 3.2 percent. Within separations, quits were little changed at 3.1 million, and the quits rate held at 2.0 percent.

The industry detail BLS highlighted for the month:

• Hires: decreased in transportation, warehousing, and utilities (-67,000) and in real estate and rental and leasing (-20,000)
• Total separations: decreased in transportation, warehousing, and utilities (-79,000) and in federal government (-10,000)
• Quits: increased in private educational services (+16,000)
• Layoffs and discharges: decreased in transportation, warehousing, and utilities (-55,000)

Transportation, warehousing, and utilities is the common thread, appearing on the declining side of hires, total separations, and layoffs alike. That combination describes an industry doing less of everything — taking on fewer workers and letting go of fewer — rather than one shedding staff.

The quits rate is the survey's cleanest read on worker confidence, since quits are generally voluntary separations initiated by the employee. It held at 2.0 percent in January. Across the twelve months of 2025 the rate registered a total change of 0 percentage points, holding within a band of 1.9 percent to 2.1 percent. A quits rate that neither rises nor falls over a full year describes workers who are neither newly confident about finding something better nor newly worried about losing what they have.

Layoffs and the Composition of Separations

In January, the number and rate of layoffs and discharges were little changed at 1.6 million and 1.0 percent. Other separations, which capture retirements, deaths, disability, and transfers within the same firm, were little changed at 337,000.

The annual estimates published with each January release show how separations were composed across 2025:

• Quits: 38.0 million, a decrease of 1.3 million from 2024, accounting for 60.6 percent of total separations
• Layoffs and discharges: 21.2 million, an increase of 1.2 million from 2024, accounting for 33.8 percent of total separations
• Other separations: 3.5 million, a decrease of 224,000 from 2024, accounting for 5.6 percent of total separations

Voluntary separations declined over the year while involuntary ones increased. That is the distinction that separates a churning labor market from a weakening one: quits falling and layoffs rising describe workers staying put and employers doing more of the deciding. The 2025 annual average rates place the same picture on a per-employment basis at 2.0 percent for quits, 1.1 percent for layoffs and discharges, and 0.2 percent for other separations.

December Revisions and the Annual Benchmark

BLS revised the December 2025 estimates alongside the January publication:

• Job openings: revised up by 8,000 to 6.6 million
• Hires: revised down by 21,000 to 5.3 million
• Total separations: revised down by 48,000 to 5.2 million
• Quits: revised up by 21,000 to 3.2 million
• Layoffs and discharges: revised down by 96,000 to 1.7 million

The more consequential adjustment is methodological. Effective with this release, JOLTS incorporates the annual updates to Current Employment Statistics employment data along with recalculated seasonal adjustment factors. JOLTS employment levels are ratio-adjusted to CES levels, and the resulting ratios propagate to every JOLTS data element. Seasonally adjusted data are recalculated for the most recent five years, and because the alignment methodology makes the unadjusted estimates depend on the seasonal adjustment process, the not-seasonally-adjusted series are recalculated over the same window. Data from January 2021 forward are subject to revision.

The effect on the openings series was predominantly downward. The revised figures lowered the January 2025 job openings level by 331,000 and the September 2025 level by 489,000, while December 2025 was revised up by 8,000. Analysts holding a mental model of 2025 labor demand calibrated to the previously published series are working from a level that no longer exists.

2025 in Annual Average

The annual estimates confirm a year of cooling demand. In 2025, the annual average job openings level was 7.1 million, a decrease of 571,000 from 2024, and the annual average job openings rate was 4.3 percent, compared with 4.6 percent in 2024.

• Hires: 63.0 million in 2025, a decrease of 1.5 million from 2024; the annual average hires rate was 3.3 percent, down from 3.4 percent
• Total separations: 62.8 million, a decrease of 251,000 from 2024; the annual average total separations rate was 3.3 percent, unchanged from 2024

Openings declined while the separations rate held flat, which points to demand contracting through fewer posted vacancies rather than through accelerated exits.

What It Means for Labor Demand

The January data describe a labor market that is neither tightening nor visibly deteriorating. Openings, hires, quits, and layoffs were all little changed or unchanged on the month, and every headline rate sat within a tenth of a point of where it spent the back half of 2025. The pressure in the data is in the annual figures rather than the monthly ones: openings averaged lower across 2025, quits fell, and layoffs rose.

The February 2026 JOLTS estimates are scheduled for release on Tuesday, March 31, 2026. The figure that will confirm or contradict the current reading is the quits rate. It has held at 2.0 percent, and the annual average for 2025 was also 2.0 percent. A decline below that level would indicate workers are pulling back from voluntary job changes faster than the layoff figures alone suggest, and would mark the first genuine break in a series that has been flat for a year.