JOLTS data from BLS is out. Here's what the headline framing isn't telling you:
→ Hiring "rebounded" to 3.5%, but that's still below pre-pandemic norms (3.8-4.0%). A bounce off a six-year low isn't a recovery.
→ Layoffs are trending upward, above the 5-year pre-pandemic average and climbing.
→ Quits rose, but from a depressed base. In a healthy market, rising quits = worker leverage. In this market, with hiring weak and layoffs climbing, rising quits more likely = workers exiting before they're pushed, or because conditions became intolerable. This is a fundamentally different mechanism from the Great Resignation, even though it’s the same number on paper.
The early signals suggest the “frozen mobility" I wrote about in The Great Stay destroyed workforce mobility is starting to crack, but in the wrong direction. Movement is returning as forced exit, not voluntary upgrade.
The math hasn't been adding up for a workforce already under stress. The aggregate "labor market is fine" story is masking the structural shift underneath.