Virginia job openings held steady over the month, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ January 2022 Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.
JOLTS data provides information on all pieces that go into the net change in the number of jobs. These components include job openings, hires, layoffs, voluntary quits, and other job separations (which includes retirements and worker deaths).
Putting those components together reveals the overall change in payroll employment. JOLTS data is seasonally adjusted and describe conditions on the last business day of the month. Current month’s data are preliminary and the prior month’s data have been revised.
The 3,000-job decrease in the number of January 2022 job openings in Virginia indicated little change from last December’s revised figure of 313,000 but were 26,000 lower than last September’s record high.
Nationwide, the number of job openings was little changed at 11.3 million. U.S. job openings increased in several industries with the largest increases in other services (+136,000) and durable goods manufacturing (+85,000) while the largest decreases were in accommodation and food services (-288,000); transportation, warehousing, and utilities (-132,000); and federal government (-60,000).
The number of hires in Virginia fell slightly by 3,000 to 171,000 in January but continued the rebound in hires from October’s drop and was 16 percent higher than in January 2021. JOLTS defines hires as all additions to the payroll during the month. The series low of 77,000 was set in April 2020, while the high of 265,000 was set in June of that year.
The number U.S. hires in January was little changed at 6.5 million (-7,000), with little hiring change in most industries. In Virginia, the hires rate rose a half of a percentage point over the year. Hires in the U.S. construction industry declined by 15 percent year-over-year to 259,000. While such a decrease might suggest contractors were pulling back, they did not lay off many workers.
The excess of openings over hires implies the industry would have hired many workers if they had been available.
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