The Bureau of Labor Statistics seems to have been spared from the Trump administration’s recent takedown of federal websites, meaning we have another JOLTS report hot off the presses.
Employers appear to be pulling back on hiring, as job openings fell to 7.6 million in December—a stark contrast to the 8.2 million reported in November, and below economists’ expectations of 8 million.
Other metrics, including hiring and separations, largely remained the same. Employers made 5.5 million hires in December, a slight increase from 5.4 million the month prior. Quits increased to 3.2 million in December, from 3.1 million in November, while layoffs and discharges remained unchanged at 1.8 million.
“The hires rate and quits rate were both unchanged in December and continue their streak of sluggishness, comparable to mid-2010s levels,” Daniel Zhao, Glassdoor’s lead economist, wrote on LinkedIn. “Both of these indicators point to a lack of healthy turnover in the job market where employers are hesitant to hire, workers are hesitant to jump ship, and the unemployed can be frozen out as a result.”
December’s data is more evidence of a labor market cooldown in 2024, as employers hired and workers stayed put. Job openings were down 1.3 million year over year, while hires and quits fell 325,000 and 242,000 in that same period.
“I thought we’d see a little bit more strength,” Adam Stafford, CEO of recruitment marketing platform Recruitics, said of the monthly job openings drop. He noted that his own clients have scaled back in terms of total volume of openings month over month, but the firm has seen sustained increases in investment per opening.
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Looking ahead. Despite the monthly drop in job openings, December’s numbers still showed improvements from October’s low. But it’s hard to say whether that trend will continue.
“There’s still some recovery,” Stafford said. “The question is: Are job openings going to stay steady now, as hiring continues to add jobs? Or will they start the decline again that we saw for most of the first three quarters of last year?”
Some employers have expressed optimism around increased investment in hiring in 2025. However, a highly competitive market, like that seen during the Great Resignation, isn’t likely, as employers may be taking a more cautious approach to recruitment.
“The employers who are under pressure now to start to produce return on investment, and really bring on capital for their investors, those employers are still hiring, with more urgency than they did majority of 2024, but they’re taking a little bit longer to do it, being a little bit more careful in terms of the people that they’re bringing on,” Stafford said. And as the Trump administration cracks down on immigration and pressures federal civil servants to quit and join the private sector, and uncertainty over the Fed’s next rate cuts persists, HR and recruitment leaders will have to brace for the labor market impact.
“We’ve got a strong labor market. We’ve got strong demand, but we’ve also got the known unknown sitting in the wings that could have an outsized impact,” Stafford said.