America’s Jobs Market RN

Some 4.35 million workers quit their jobs in February, according to a Labor Department report published yesterday.

✌️💼 Words of the year: “The Great Resignation”… The number of people quitting topped 4 million last June for the first time ever…. and now it’s happened nine months in a row.

• Prior to the pandemic, the number of people quitting jobs averaged fewer than 3 million per month.
• The quitting rate peaked in November and December 2021, when 3% of all non-farm workers quit each month.
• Job openings fell slightly to 11.27 million in February, but remained near a record high (11.4 million). As it sits, there’s almost two open jobs for every unemployed person, and wages are rising at their fastest pace in decades.

✋ Yes, but: Record-high inflation has impacted or leveled out some of those wage gains. About 17% of Americans list the high cost of living and inflation as the most important problems facing the country today, up from 8% in January.

📊 The bottom line: Inflation is still high, and the labor market is still tight (i.e., lots of job openings, low number of layoffs).