What federal jobs data says about meeting employee lifestyle needs

Fresh data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Jobs and Labor Turnover Survey also doubles as a Rorschach Test from internal communicators—it can stir optimism or pessimism depending on how you look at it.

The pessimism is louder. U.S. job opening numbers sat at 11.3 million on the last business day of January, little changed from the numbers in December. Several industries saw a decrease in job openings including accommodation and food services (-288,000), transportation, warehousing, and utilities (-132,000); and the federal government (-60,000).

On the flip side, the number of Americans quitting their jobs decreased slightly to 2.8%, according to the report, and year-over-year employment increased by 6.4 million over the 12 months ending in January.

Scott Hamilton, global managing director of Gallagher’s HR & compensation consulting practice warns that, because there is often much noise in JOLTS numbers, change of several percentage points might not mean anything at all.

“I’m looking at this as just kind of a continued shuffling of the deck,” he says. “You know the old saying, ‘What happens when you give a party and nobody’s shows up?’ Well, what happens when you give an HR strategy and nobody comes to work?”