The quits rate has fallen below where it stood in 2020, while job openings have not
The rate rose from 2.1 percent of employment in 2020 to 2.8 in 2022, then fell in each of the next three years to 2 percent, below where it began. Job openings peaked in the same year and remain above their own 2020 level, so the two halves of the picture no longer agree.
by
Published 2 minute read
插图：The Cefa Brief
The rate at which people quit a job is lower now than it was in 2020. It reads 2 percent of employment in 2025 against 2.1 percent in 2020. In between it rose to 2.8 percent in 2022. The whole of that rise has been given back, and 0.1 of a percentage point besides.
The six readings are 2.1 percent of employment in 2020, 2.7 in 2021, 2.8 in 2022, 2.4 in 2023, 2.1 in 2024 and 2 in 2025. The year-on-year steps are plus 0.6, plus 0.1, minus 0.4, minus 0.3 and minus 0.1. The climb took two years and came to 0.7 of a percentage point. The descent took three and came to 0.8. It is a round trip that overshot its origin, and 2025 is the lowest of the six readings.
Notes: Annual observations. Each point is the annual observation as the source publishes it.
Source: The Cefa Brief
Chart description
A line chart of the rate at which people quit a job, as a percent of employment: 2.1 in 2020, 2.7 in 2021, 2.8 in 2022, 2.4 in 2023, 2.1 in 2024 and 2 in 2025. The line rises for two years to its highest point at 2.8, then falls in each of the next three years and ends below the 2.1 it started from.
A line chart of the rate at which people quit a job, as a percent of employment: 2.1 in 2020, 2.7 in 2021, 2.8 in 2022, 2.4 in 2023, 2.1 in 2024 and 2 in 2025. The line rises for two years to its highest point at 2.8, then falls in each of the next three years and ends below the 2.1 it started from.
Openings did not follow it down
Job openings across the whole economy, a separate series from the same agency, ran 6.3 million openings on the monthly average in 2020, rose to 11.2 million in 2022 and stood at 7.1 million in 2025. That series added 4.9 million between 2020 and 2022 and gave back 4.1 million by 2025, which leaves it 0.8 million above where it started. Quits gave back all of its 0.7 and then some. The two series reach their highest reading in the same year and end on opposite sides of their own starting points.
That is the finding worth holding. Employers are still advertising more vacancies than they were in 2020, on the monthly average, and workers are leaving at a lower rate than they were in 2020. Both statements are readings, not explanations. The file does not say why the two moved apart.
What a rate does not count
The quits series is a rate, stated as a percent of employment. It is not a count of people. A rate can fall because fewer people leave, or because employment grows while the number leaving holds steady, and nothing on this page tells the two apart. The title says what it measures, the rate at which people quit a job. It does not say where those people went, so the series cannot distinguish a move to a better job from a departure from work altogether.
The observations are annual, one point a year for six years. The peak can therefore be dated no more finely than to 2022. The most recent move, minus 0.1 between 2024 and 2025, is the smallest in the series and the one least worth leaning on. The claim that survives is about the position of 2025 relative to 2020, not about the pace of the last step.
What would change the answer
A 2026 reading of 2.1 percent or above would turn the last two years into a floor rather than a descent, and the finding would become a return to the 2020 level rather than a move below it. A further fall would settle it the other way. The figure to watch alongside it is openings: while that series stays above the 6.3 million monthly average it recorded in 2020, the distance between what employers advertise and what workers do stays open, and it is that distance, rather than the level of either line, that this pair of series is about.
Method and data
The figures are annual observations of the quits rate, series JTSQUR, published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, redistributed by FRED and retrieved for this site on 19 September 2026. The unit is a percent of employment, so each point is a rate and not a count. The series does not say how many people quit, and a fall in the rate is consistent with fewer people leaving or with employment growing under a steady number of leavers; nothing here separates those two. It also does not say where the people who quit went. The job openings series quoted for contrast, JTSJOL, is stated in millions of openings as a monthly average, so each of its points is the average month of that year and not the year's total of openings. Both series carry six annual points and no monthly detail, so within-year turning points, the month of either peak and any seasonality sit outside what this piece can state.
How to cite
Jag DeSaint, "The quits rate has fallen below where it stood in 2020, while job openings have not," The Cefa Brief, Applied America, 2026年5月7日, https://applied.thecefa.org/cefa-brief/the-rate-that-came-back-lower.
About the author
Each author told us that for this piece they hold no interest a reader would think relevant.
This Insights piece carries its author's name because the view in it is the author's own. An editor reviewed it before publication, which is not the same as agreeing with it. It is not a position of the Center for Economics & Foreign Affairs or of Applied America.
© 2026. The author or authors hold the copyright in this Insights piece; CEFA publishes it with their permission. This edition, its editing and its presentation are © 2026 Center for Economics & Foreign Affairs. To republish it, see our republication terms. Republishing
Share
The Cefa Brief · applied.thecefa.org/cefa-brief/the-rate-that-came-back-lower · Printed from the web edition