U.S. job growth in 2026 has become broader than last year's health-care-driven gains, but economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta say that is not the same as a decisive turnaround. Two pieces the bank published this week, an Oct. 13 industry analysis and an Oct.
Hiring activity at small businesses cooled in September, and owners who did try to fill jobs kept running into the same problem: a shortage of qualified candidates. In its monthly Small Business Economic Trends survey, released Oct.
U.S. employers reported about 7.08 million job openings on the last business day of August, down from a revised 7.34 million in July, while hires, quits and layoffs changed little, according to the BLS JOLTS release of September 29.
A posting is not an opening, and an opening is not a hire. July JOLTS showed 7.3 million openings and 5.1 million hires, and a new 41-country AI study shows how to use posting data without confusing the three.
Payrolls, JOLTS, wage series and a Census AI-use survey already exist; task-level and career-stage AI measures do not. A dashboard for this period should show both, clearly labeled.
July's 7.3 million job openings are a month-end snapshot, not completed hires. Read with hires, quits, layoffs, pay and local data, they point to steady demand but slower movement between jobs.
July's 7.3 million openings and 5.1 million hires measure different things, and neither shows whether employers struggle more to find candidates or to sort them. That answer lives in each employer's own hiring funnel.
