U.S. adds 9.6 million job openings in August: Report

Employers continued to struggle to fill roles in the month of August, according to a recent report.

The number of job openings in the country rose to 9.6 million that month, from 8.9 million in July, notes the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Among sectors, professional and business services (1.9 million); health care and social assistance (1.7 million); trade, transportation, and utilities (1.3 million) and accommodation and food services (1.0 million) had the biggest numbers of job openings.

Amazon and UPS recently launched massive hiring campaigns for the holiday season.

Hires, quits, layoffs

And while there were 5.86 million hires that month, there were also 5.7 million separations – including 3.6 million workers who quit work. Layoffs, meanwhile, held steady at 1.68 million, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary (JOLTS).

“The big fear here is that we decrease openings and that we increase layoffs at the same time, and that would mean that a lot of folks are out of work,” said Layla O’Kane, research director and senior economist for labor market research firm Lightcast, in a CNN report. “So I think that having layoffs stay about the same is a really good sign for workers in general.”

The biggest numbers of hires were recorded in professional and business services (1.1 million) and accommodation and food services (936,000).

Half (50%) of job candidates have backed out of the job offer before their first day, according to a previous report.

“We looked at [indicators] like employers offering sign-on bonuses, offering additional training, retirement benefits or tuition benefits — other things that employers use when there’s a really tight labor market and they’re trying to get workers,” O’Kane said. 

Those declined in August, she noted.

Here are the top three hiring mistakes of 2023, according to one expert.