What does the Bureau of Labor Statistics mean by “little changed”?
What does the Bureau of Labor Statistics mean by “little changed”?
It’s a big week for labor market data. Friday brings us the December jobs report and Wednesday we got the November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey — or JOLTS, if you want to be a nerd about it.
The JOLTS shows that the number of job openings and new hires both dropped a smidge in November, but so did the number of layoffs and quits. It’s consistent with a job market that is slowly cooling off but still pretty warm. The Bureau of Labor Statistics described the trend over and over — in this report and through much of the back half of 2023 — as “little changed.” That or “changed little.” What is the agency trying to say?
The phrase is basically BLS-speak for “not a whole lot to see here,” which was also the case before the pandemic.
“JOLTS is boring again. And I think that’s probably a good thing,” said Nick Bunker, an economist at job site Indeed.
Bunker is a bit of a JOLTS hipster — he was into it before it was cool. His wife even gave him a JOLTS-themed Christmas present: a vintage-style pennant emblazoned with the acronym, as if it were a beloved sports team.
“It became a bit of a shtick that I just was very excited about this under-the-radar data series,” he said.
But it’s been on the radar since the pandemic JOLT-ed layoffs, job openings and quits.
“More people jumped on the JOLTS bandwagon,” Bunker said. “It was very much like having a favorite song by a less-well-known artist, and all of a sudden then people start playing it on the radio.”
People like Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who said, “The job openings number in JOLTS has been quite volatile” at a press conference in February.
At that time, there were almost two open jobs for every available worker. Since then, things have changed.
“What we’re seeing with a lot of the data is moderation. And I would dare add the word ‘normalization,'” said Mark Hamrick, Washington bureau chief at Bankrate.
Now the ratio of open jobs to workers is near pre-pandemic levels. And hiring and quits have dropped below that mark, said Julia Pollak, chief economist at job site ZipRecruiter.
“I think that the JOLTS report’s moment in the spotlight is over. It is no longer going to be a market-moving report,” she said.
So Nick Bunker at Indeed might have that bandwagon back to himself.
Stories You Might Like
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
