SFY - December JOLTS Report Continues The Trend Of Confusing Jobs Data
The December JOLTS report came out this morning, and it continues the streak of confusing employment data.
To recapitulate, the JOLTS report decomposes the jobs numbers into openings, hires, quits, layoffs and discharges, and total separations. Since the series is only 20 years old, however, it only covers one full business cycle, so is of limited forecasting use.
The order in which the JOLTS series peaked during the 2000s expansion was as follows:
- Hires peaked first, from December 2004 through September 2005.
- Quits peaked next, in September 2005.
- Layoffs and Discharges peaked next, from October