US Job Openings Rose to 6.9 Million While Hiring Stalled
US job openings rose to 6.946 million in January, beating forecasts. Hiring remained tepid with a small gain as layoffs dropped to 1.631 million positions.
Job openings in the United States saw an increase in January, though hiring activity remained sluggish, indicating a stable yet cautious labor market. According to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) released by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, the number of available positions rose by 396,000 to reach 6.946 million on the final day of the month.
The reported figure surpassed economist expectations, as a Reuters poll had previously estimated approximately 6.70 million unfilled jobs. Consequently, the job openings rate climbed to 4.2%, up from 4.0% in December. Despite the monthly gain, the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued revisions for 2025 data, showing downward adjustments for nearly every month except December. The annual average for job openings in 2025 was 7.1 million, representing a decline of 571,000 compared to 2024.
While demand for labor appeared resilient, actual hiring showed little momentum. New hires advanced by just 22,000 positions to a total of 5.294 million in January, leaving the hiring rate unchanged at 3.3%. On an annual basis, the total number of hires for 2025 fell by 1.5 million to 63.0 million.
On the side of labor retention, layoffs and discharges saw a slight decrease of 35,000, bringing the total to 1.631 million for January. This moved the layoff rate down to 1.0% from 1.1% in the previous month. However, looking at the full year of 2025, layoffs and discharges rose by 1.2 million to a total of 21.2 million.
