The simple version

The monthly employment report produces a single headline figure, the net change in payroll jobs. Net means hiring minus separations, so a large amount of activity can hide inside a small number.

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey takes that activity apart. It counts openings, hires, and separations separately, and it splits separations into people who quit and people who were laid off. Those are not the same event and they do not describe the same thing.

The next release lands Tuesday, September 1, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, and it covers July. That timing is itself worth knowing, because this survey runs a month behind the payroll report everyone watches.

The numbers

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics has scheduled the next Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey release for Tuesday, September 1, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, covering July 2026 (BLS)
• The most recent published release came out Tuesday, August 4, 2026, and covered June 2026 (BLS)
• The monthly Employment Situation report covering July 2026 was released August 7, 2026, so the turnover survey trails the payroll report by roughly a month for the same reference month (BLS release schedules)
• BLS states the release includes estimates of the number and rate of job openings, hires, and separations for the total nonfarm sector, by industry, and by establishment size class (BLS)
• Total separations include quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations (BLS)
• In June 2026, job openings were 7.4 million and the job openings rate was 4.4 percent (BLS)
• In June 2026, hires were 5.3 million at a rate of 3.4 percent, and total separations were 5.4 million at a rate of 3.4 percent (BLS)
• In June 2026, quits were 3.2 million at a rate of 2.0 percent, and layoffs and discharges were 1.8 million at a rate of 1.1 percent (BLS)
• Other separations, which BLS says include retirement, death, disability, and transfers to other locations of the same firm, were 353,000 in June 2026 (BLS)
• BLS states that quits are generally voluntary separations initiated by the employee, and that the quits rate can therefore serve as a measure of workers' willingness or ability to leave jobs (BLS)
• The survey design is a stratified random sample of approximately 21,000 nonfarm business and government establishments (BLS technical note)
• JOLTS estimates are revised annually with the issuance of data for January, and five years of data are subject to revision (BLS technical note)
• A net payroll change of zero can occur with very high hiring and very high separations, or with almost none of either, and the net figure cannot distinguish those (definition)

Why a net number hides the interesting part

Imagine two months that both produce zero net job growth. In the first, employers hired six million people and six million left. In the second, employers hired almost nobody and almost nobody left. The headline is identical and the two situations are nothing alike.

The first describes a labor market with enormous movement: people changing jobs, positions being filled and created constantly. The second describes one that has gone still, where few are hiring and few are leaving.

The turnover survey is what tells those apart. By counting hires and separations separately rather than netting them, it measures the flow through the labor market rather than the level of it. Both of those months would print the same headline, and only one of these reports would notice the difference.

The June figures show the scale involved. Hires were 5.3 million and total separations were 5.4 million, which is more than ten million individual changes inside a single month. The net of those two is a much smaller number than either one.

Why quitting is the line worth reading

Among the separations, quits are the category that carries the most information, and the reason is that quitting is a choice.

The statistical agency draws the distinction itself rather than leaving it to interpretation. It states that quits are generally voluntary separations initiated by the employee, and that layoffs and discharges are involuntary separations initiated by the employer. One line describes decisions made by workers, the other describes decisions made about them.

It goes one step further, and the precise wording is worth keeping. BLS says the quits rate can therefore serve as a measure of workers' willingness or ability to leave jobs. Willingness or ability. That is a narrower claim than the one usually made about this series.

The common reading, that a high quits rate signals worker confidence, is an interpretation layered on top of that. It is a reasonable one, since leaving a job usually implies expecting another. But confidence is not the word the agency uses, and quits can move for reasons that have nothing to do with optimism, including how many people happen to be in jobs they took reluctantly.

That still leaves it unusual among economic statistics. Most measures describe what happened to people. This one describes what people did on their own initiative, which is closer to a survey conducted through behavior than through questions.

The Real Cost lens on which line answers your question

This report maps onto a household's actual situation more directly than the headline figure does, because its components answer different questions.

• If you are looking for work, the openings figure describes how many positions employers reported open on the last business day of the month, and the hires figure describes how many were actually filled. Those are different numbers and both are published
• If you are employed and weighing a move, the quits line describes how many people made that move, which BLS ties to willingness or ability rather than to whether it worked out for them
• If you are worried about your job, layoffs and discharges is the line that describes employer decisions directly, and it is reported separately from quits for exactly that reason
• The net payroll headline, which receives nearly all the coverage, answers none of those questions specifically
• All of these are national figures from a sample of about 21,000 establishments, so they describe an economy rather than an industry, a region, or an employer

None of that is a basis for a decision, and it is not meant to be. It is a way of finding which line in a release is closest to the question you actually have, instead of reading the one that leads the coverage.

What this means

When the turnover survey lands Tuesday morning, the components are the useful part. Openings, hires, quits, and layoffs each answer a different question, and adding them together into one figure is what the monthly headline already does.

The broader habit is to be careful with net figures anywhere they appear. Any number produced by subtracting one large quantity from another can hold still while both halves move enormously, and the halves are usually published right alongside it.

What this is NOT

This is not a prediction of Tuesday's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey release, of the monthly employment report, of Federal Reserve decisions, or of the economy, and no expectation or forecast figure appears here. This is not a claim that the labor market is strong or weak, improving or deteriorating, which is a judgment this article does not make. Every figure cited is a published result for a stated reference month, not an indication of what any future month will show. This is not advice about employment, changing jobs, or any career or financial decision, and it is not advice about any security or fund. Survey estimates are subject to revision, and national figures do not describe any individual industry, region, or employer. This is not investment or financial advice of any kind.

Sources

• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey news release: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS technical note: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.tn.htm
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey home: https://www.bls.gov/jlt/
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS release schedule: https://www.bls.gov/schedule/news_release/jolts.htm
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Situation release schedule: https://www.bls.gov/schedule/news_release/empsit.htm