Job Churn Stays Low: Quits and Layoffs Hold Steady in the Latest JOLTS

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 3.1 million quits in August 2026, unchanged from the prior month, and 1.6 million layoffs and discharges, essentially unchanged. Those are the latest figures in the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), and they anchor a MarketWatch account of a labor market that, in its headline's words, is the "strangest job market the U.S. has ever seen." The same piece frames the current period as the third year of the low-hire, low-fire economy.

JOLTS, published by the BLS, tracks job openings, hires, quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations. A quit is a voluntary departure, and a high quit count usually means workers feel secure enough to change jobs. Layoffs and discharges are involuntary separations that employers initiate. Read together, the two series show how much movement sits underneath the headline unemployment rate, which counts people who are jobless and looking for work.

Hiring has been quieter. The BLS summary reports hires changed little at 5.2 million, and total separations were unchanged at 5.1 million. Reuters put the hires rate, meaning hires as a share of total employment, at 3.4% in June, up from 3.3% in May. Layoffs and discharges were little changed at 1.766 million, with the rate steady at 1.1%.

"Low-hire, low-fire" describes a market where employers add staff slowly and avoid cutting it. Churn is low in both directions, like a bathtub with both the tap and the drain running slowly.

For a worker who keeps a job, that means lower odds of being laid off. For someone trying to move, it means fewer open doors and fewer competing offers. The hires rate bears most directly on job-seekers, and it has stayed in a narrow band.

A 2026 Economic Commentary from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, titled "The Low-Hire, Low-Fire Labor Market" and authored by B. Fallick, states that the recent combination of low hire, quit and layoff rates is likely a result of a long-term downtrend in labor market fluidity.

That framing matters for reading the data. If the low readings reflect a structural decline in how often people move between jobs, a cyclical rebound in hiring would not necessarily restore the older pattern of churn. The Cleveland Fed argument points toward structure rather than a single cyclical shock.

For savers and borrowers, the practical question is which side of this market is under pressure. Low layoffs support household income stability, which bears on credit performance and on how far households can stretch their budgets. Low quits and hires, by contrast, limit the leverage of workers who want to negotiate pay by switching employers. Those are the usual lines of reasoning.

Forecasters will look for signs of a turn in the next release. The BLS has scheduled the September 2026 JOLTS for November 3, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time. A move in the quits or layoffs series of the size seen in recent months would be a notable change in direction, but a single month is a thin basis for calling a trend. Hot takes on what the next print means should be weighed against how stable these series have been.

The core takeaway is straightforward. Quits and layoffs remain close to recent levels, hiring has moved in a narrow range, and the Cleveland Fed attributes the pattern to a longer-run decline in labor market fluidity. The next data point arrives on November 3.