JOLTS Hires Rate
The JOLTS hires rate measures total hires during the month as a share of employment. It turns employer demand into completed transactions: a vacancy can remain posted for months, while a hire means a worker actually entered a payroll. The rate is seasonally adjusted and comparable through time despite growth in the workforce.
Hires rate
Next release: Sep 1, 2026
Latest reading
As of June 2026, Hires Rate (Hires rate) stands at 3.4% — up from 3.3% the prior reading, 2.7 pp below the May 2020 record of 6.1%. A rising hires rate means employers are converting demand into jobs; a sustained decline is an earlier sign of cooling than outright layoffs. Read the three-month average beside openings and quits because one noisy survey month can distort the level. Openings without hires describe intent; openings together with hiring describe a genuinely tight market. Series history runs from 2000 to present.
Sources, methodology & freshnessLast updated 2026-08-21 · Open ↓Close ↑
Full history
Methodology & data
Hires Rate is sourced from BLS via the Federal Reserve's FRED service (BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey via FRED (JTSHIR), monthly, seasonally adjusted). We pull the complete history, chart it on a monthly basis, overlay SPY for context, and generate a dated plain-English reading from the latest release — with no smoothing or adjustment beyond what the chart legend states.
Every reading is stamped with its release date, last updated 2026-08-21. Maintained and reviewed by Yuriy Matso; see our methodology for the standards every series on the site is held to.
Frequently asked questions
What is the JOLTS Hires Rate?
The JOLTS hires rate measures total hires during the month as a share of employment. It turns employer demand into completed transactions: a vacancy can remain posted for months, while a hire means a worker actually entered a payroll. The rate is seasonally adjusted and comparable through time despite growth in the workforce.
How do you read Hires Rate?
A rising hires rate means employers are converting demand into jobs; a sustained decline is an earlier sign of cooling than outright layoffs. Read the three-month average beside openings and quits because one noisy survey month can distort the level. Openings without hires describe intent; openings together with hiring describe a genuinely tight market.
Where does the Hires Rate data come from?
BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey via FRED (JTSHIR), monthly, seasonally adjusted. We chart the full history and publish a dated, plain-English reading with every release; the raw series is downloadable as CSV at /data/indicators/hires-rate.csv.
How often is Hires Rate updated?
Hires Rate is a monthly series from BLS, refreshed here as soon as a new release posts to FRED.
Hires rate
Next release: Sep 1, 2026