US job openings rose in January while layoffs fell and quits picked up, indicating resilience in the labor market as the Trump administration took office.

Available positions increased to 7.74 million from a revised 7.51 million reading in December 2024, according to monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics data published March 11. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 7.6 million openings.

The advance in openings was driven by the financial activities, retail trade and construction sector. The rise in quits was broad based.

Job openings remain above pre-pandemic averages despite a downward trend over the last three years, suggesting employers are still looking to hire. Details of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed the hiring rate remained unchanged in January 2025, while the layoffs rate dipped to 1%, the lowest since June 2024 — showing the US economy remained in a limited-hiring, limited-firing environment. 

The so-called quits rate, which measures the percentage of people voluntarily leaving their jobs each month, rose to 2.1% — the highest since July — interrupting the steady decline that has prevailed since 2022.

But the data lag behind more recent reports indicating a slowdown in the labor market last month amid uncertainty around President Donald Trump’s economic policies. Continuing applications for unemployment benefits rose to nearly a three-year high in the week ended Feb. 22, 2025, and the February jobs report published Friday showed the unemployment rate climbed to 4.1%.

The weaker data and a slide in the stock market have investors betting the Federal Reserve will opt for three quarter-point interest-rate cuts this year, more than the two they projected in December 2024. Fed officials will update their projections at next week’s policy meeting.

What Bloomberg Economics Says…

The January JOLTS report showed a surprising improvement in the labor market, but we take the data with a grain of salt. The uptick in job openings was driven by financial services and retail trade — but more recently, financial services firms have announced high-profile layoffs, and other firms have guided investor expectations lower.

— Stuart Paul, economist

The number of vacancies per unemployed worker, a ratio Fed officials watch closely as a proxy of the balance between labor demand and supply, was unchanged at 1.1, according to the JOLTS report. At its peak in 2022, the ratio was 2 to 1.

(Updates with Bloomberg Economics comment.)