WASHINGTON (AP) – “You’re hired” might be heard much more frequency with record hiring in the American economy reported.
But so are the words “I quit.”
U.S. employers advertised the most jobs on record in July, and the proportion of workers quitting their jobs also hit a new all-time high.
Americans are increasingly taking advantage of a tight labor market to find new, often higher-paying jobs.
The Labor Department said Tuesday that the number of job openings rose 1.7 percent to 6.9 million, the most on record dating back to late 2000. The number of people quitting jumped 3 percent to 3.58 million, or about 2.4 percent of the workforce.
With the unemployment rate near an 18-year low of 3.9 percent, businesses are increasingly desperate to find workers. Even as the number of available jobs rose, overall hiring was essentially flat, the report showed.
