August 2026: one job opening per unemployed person, quits at 1.9%

On the last business day of August 2026, US employers were trying to fill 7,079,000 jobs. In the same month the household survey counted 7,031,000 people who were unemployed. The two numbers come from different surveys of different people, and they landed within 48,000 of each other.

That near-match is the headline of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, known as JOLTS, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics published at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. The more telling number sits further down the release. The quits rate, the share of workers who left a job voluntarily, held at 1.9%.

What the August release said

Openings fell by 256,000 from July to August 2026, which sounds large. BLS still described the level as “little changed”. JOLTS is a sample survey, and a fall of that size was not treated in the release as a meaningful change. The sample is a survey of what BLS calls “approximately 21,000” nonfarm business and government establishments. Over twelve months openings were 160,000 higher than in August 2025.

The payroll survey, a separate sample of employers, first reported August 2026 payrolls up 162,000 in its September 4, 2026 release. JOLTS is not designed to reproduce that number, and the two are not expected to match month by month.

Openings per unemployed person

The ratio of openings to unemployed people is one of the simplest ways to describe how tight a labour market is. Above one, there are more vacancies than job seekers. Below one, there are more job seekers than vacancies. BLS publishes the two inputs in separate releases; the division is ours.

The same arithmetic for earlier months uses revised openings from the August 2026 JOLTS tables and unemployment from the August 2026 Employment Situation: June 2026 gives 7,182 ÷ 7,094 = 1.01, and July 2026 gives 7,335 ÷ 6,916 = 1.06. A year earlier, in August 2025, there were 6,919,000 openings and 7,380,000 unemployed, a ratio of 0.94. On this measure the market was slightly tighter in August 2026 than twelve months before.

How JOLTS defines an opening

An opening is not a job advertisement. BLS asks employers about positions that meet three conditions on the last business day of the month.

1. A specific position exists and there is work available for it.
2. The job could start within 30 days.
3. The employer is actively recruiting workers from outside the establishment.

Positions to be filled by internal transfer, jobs with a start date more than 30 days away, and work to be done by temporary agencies or contractors are excluded. The job openings rate is calculated by dividing the number of openings by the sum of employment and openings, then multiplying by 100. Hires, quits and layoffs are different: they count every change to the payroll during the whole month, and their rates divide by employment alone.

That difference in timing matters. Openings are a snapshot of one day. Hires and separations are a flow across the whole month. A month with many openings and few hires can mean employers are struggling to fill posts, or that they are posting more than they intend to fill.

Why the quits rate is watched

Quits are generally voluntary separations initiated by the employee. Therefore, the quits rate can serve as a measure of workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs.U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Job Openings and Labor Turnover — August 2026, September 29, 2026

Layoffs and discharges tell the other half of the story. At 1.0% in August 2026, against 1.2% in August 2025, employers were letting fewer people go. Low quits and low layoffs together describe a labour market where workers are staying put and employers are holding on to them.

Where the industry figures moved

BLS said openings “changed little in all industries” in August 2026. The over-the-year comparisons in the industry tables are more varied, though each industry estimate rests on a smaller sample than the national total.

• Leisure and hospitality had 829,000 openings in August 2026, down from 1,050,000 in August 2025. Its quits rate, 3.3%, was still the highest of the industries shown.
• Retail trade quits rose from 376,000 to 464,000 over the year, and its openings rate rose from 3.8% to 4.7%.
• Finance and insurance openings rose from 242,000 in August 2025 to 353,000 in August 2026, a rate of 5.0%.
• Construction layoffs and discharges were 99,000 in August 2026, down from 157,000 in July. The release did not single this out as a significant change.
• BLS did flag quits falling in wholesale trade (−34,000) and state and local government education (−21,000), and rising in nondurable goods manufacturing (+28,000) and private educational services (+13,000).

What it means for your money

For a household, JOLTS is less about the level of openings than about movement. A 1.9% quits rate means fewer people are changing employers than in 2021 or 2022. A worker who changes employer negotiates pay afresh, so a slower quits rate is one reason to look at wage growth alongside prices rather than assume pay keeps pace.

The layoffs rate is the figure closer to job security. At 1.0%, 1,641,000 people were laid off or discharged in August 2026, while 5,192,000 were hired. A layoff is still a real event for the person it happens to, and the emergency fund arithmetic does not change with the national rate. The ratio of openings to unemployed says there was, on average, one vacancy per job seeker in August 2026; it says nothing about whether that vacancy is in the right city, industry or pay band for any one person.

Every August figure in this piece is preliminary and will be revised with the September data. Our piece on data revisions explains why the first estimate of a survey figure is a draft.