More people are quitting their jobs now than at any time since the dotcom bubble, according to new government data, a sign that workers are becoming more confident about their prospects.
Total quits rose to 3.22 million in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday morning. That is more people quitting than in any month since February 2001.
Economists see quits as a positive signal. Usually, workers won’t walk out of a job unless they have a reasonable expectation that they can get another.
In other good news from Tuesday’s report, total hires rose to the second-highest level of the recovery. A total of 5.47 million people were hired in May.
Total advertised job openings cooled from a record high in April to 5.67 million in May, the same report noted, but there are still more vacancies than at any point before the current recovery.
The jobs figures released Tuesday come from the bureau’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. The report contains data on gross hiring and layoffs that aren’t included in the monthly jobs report, making it valuable to investors and Federal Reserve officials even though it is released on a one-month lag.
Tuesday’s report will be yet another data point showing the labor market is getting tighter, reassuring the Fed its planned campaign of raising interest rates to slow spending is the right course of action.
In May, there were only 1.2 unemployed workers for every advertised job opening, suggesting jobless workers face much better prospects than they did earlier in the recovery. During the recession, there were as many as six to seven people looking for work for every available job. Now, that ratio is lower than at any time during the housing bubble.
