New State and Metropolitan Area Data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey

Soon after I became Commissioner, the top-notch BLS staff shared with me their vision to expand the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). The JOLTS program publishes data each month on the number and rate of job openings, hires, and separations (broken out by quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations). These data are available at the national level and for the four large geographic regions—Northeast, Midwest, South, and West.

That left a major data gap on labor demand, hires, and separations for states and metropolitan areas. BLS provides data on labor supply for states and metro areas each month from the Local Area Unemployment Statistics program. We also provide data on employment change in states and metro areas each month from the Current Employment Statistics survey. Employment change is the net effect of hires and separations, but it doesn’t show the underlying flow of job creation and destruction. Having better, timelier state and metro JOLTS data would provide a quicker signal about whether labor demand is accelerating or weakening in local economies.

About 2 months after the staff briefed me, the JOLTS program published experimental state estimates for the first time on May 24, 2019. We have been updating those estimates on a quarterly basis since then. We use a statistical model to help us produce the most current state estimates. We then improve those estimates during an annual benchmark process by taking advantage of data available from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. The JOLTS program is well on its way to moving these state estimates into its official, monthly data stream. Look for that to happen in the second half of 2021!

The President’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2021 includes three improvements to the JOLTS program.

• Expand the sample to support direct sample-based estimates for each state.
• Accelerate the review and publication of the estimates.
• Add questions to provide more information about job openings, hires, and separations.

If funded, this proposal would allow BLS to improve the data quality available from the current JOLTS state estimates. It also would let us add very broad industry detail for each state and more industry detail at the national level.

The proposed larger sample size may also let us produce model-assisted JOLTS estimates for many metro areas. To demonstrate this potential, the JOLTS team produced a one-time set of research estimates for the 18 largest metropolitan statistical areas, those with 1.5 million or more employees. These research estimates show the potential for data that would be available regularly with a larger JOLTS sample. I encourage you to explore this exciting new research series and let us know what you think.

Editor’s note: Data for this chart are available in the table below.

This is just one example of the excellent work I see at BLS every day. The BLS staff are consummate professionals who continue to do outstanding work even in the most trying of times. The entire BLS staff has been teleworking now for several months due to COVID-19, and every program continues to produce high quality data on schedule! Even in these extraordinary circumstances, BLS professionals continue to innovate and find ways to improve quality and develop new gold standard data products to help the policymakers, businesses, and the public make better-informed decisions.