Risk and sentiment
US Job Openings
US job openings, a signal for labor demand and wage-pressure background.
At a glance
US Job Openings: latest value and prior change
As of 2026-03-01, US Job Openings is 6,866 k. It is 56.00 k lower than 6,922 k on 2026-02-01.
Across 123 available observations from 2016-01-01 to 2026-03-01, the latest value is at the tie-adjusted 33rd percentile.
- Observed on
- Default comparison window
- 2016-01-01–2026-03-01
- Observations · observed cadence
- 123 · Monthly
- Data source
- FRED
A high or low percentile does not by itself make the indicator positive, negative, or a buy or sell signal.
Time-series chart
US Job Openings
2016-01-01–2026-03-01
Long-history series are stored as real provider observations. Index, FX, VIX, and ratio charts use historical backfill where providers expose it; Korean investor flow and margin-credit feeds expand as stable historical endpoints become available.
Interpretation guide
JOLTS job openings: taking the temperature of labor demand
US job openings come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) and count positions employers are actively trying to fill each month. It is one of the few series that measures the demand side of the labor market directly, rather than inferring it from unemployment or layoffs.
The only direct window on labor demand
Where the unemployment rate and claims measure stress on the supply side, openings measure how badly firms want workers. A sustained excess of openings over unemployed workers keeps wage pressure alive, which feeds services inflation and keeps the Fed hawkish for longer.
- An openings-to-unemployed ratio well above 1 marks a demand-heavy, tight labor market.
- A ratio drifting back toward 1 signals a return to roughly pre-pandemic balance.
- Openings falling without layoffs rising is the configuration consistent with a soft-landing path for wages.
Lag and data-quality caveats
JOLTS is released about two months after the reference month, among the longest lags of any labor series. Declining survey response rates have also made monthly prints noisier, so a three-month trend is a safer unit of analysis than any single release.
- By release day, faster series such as initial claims have already delivered two months of newer information.
- Changes in online job-posting practices mean one opening today may not equal one opening a decade ago.
- A falling quits rate in the same report signals workers losing bargaining power, a useful companion read.
Translating it into the Fed path and Korean assets
The Fed has repeatedly cited openings when judging labor-market balance, so this series moves rate-path expectations and, through the US-Korea rate differential, the won. A collapse in openings fuels easing hopes but can also foreshadow demand destruction, a double-edged outcome for Korea's export cycle.
- Read it with US Continued Jobless Claims to see whether fading demand is turning into longer unemployment spells.
- If openings fall while US Core PCE YoY stays elevated, a higher-for-longer scenario cannot be ruled out.
- When the openings-to-unemployed ratio drops steeply, cross-check deceleration in US Nonfarm Payrolls YoY.