US JOLTS August 2026: Release Date and Job Openings Guide

US JOLTS August 2026 release date: the direct answer

The US JOLTS August 2026 report is scheduled for Tuesday, 29 September, at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time. The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists that timing on both its JOLTS-specific and September calendars. The report covers August activity, not September, so it is a monthly look back at vacancies and worker turnover rather than a live jobs count.[1] [8]

JOLTS is the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. BLS produces monthly and annual national estimates of job openings, hires and separations, plus monthly total-nonfarm state estimates. The national release includes levels and rates for total nonfarm, industries, regions and establishment-size classes. August figures are not yet released at publication of this guide; no value, consensus forecast or market reaction is substituted for them.[2] [4]

At 10:00 a.m. ET, use the BLS summary and linked tables. The headline matters, but the tables show the prior month, rate, industry and regional detail, and revised earlier estimate. BLS also says whether a move was statistically significant or little changed.[4] [5]

What the job openings report measures

JOLTS is an establishment survey. It asks businesses and government establishments about their payroll activity and unfilled positions. The national programme covers private nonfarm establishments plus civilian federal, state and local government entities in the 50 states and DC, using a stratified random sample of about 21,000 establishments. It is evidence on labor demand and turnover, not a household survey or a complete answer to every labor-market question.[5] [6]

The report has two different measure types. Job openings are a stock measured on the last business day of the month. Hires and separations are flows during the whole month. An opening at month-end is not necessarily a job created in August, and a hire in August need not fill an opening reported in the same month.[3] [4]

BLS publishes levels and rates. Levels are counts, usually in thousands; rates place a measure against a relevant employment base. The job-openings rate uses openings divided by filled plus unfilled jobs, while hires and separations rates use employment. Both views prevent a large industry’s raw total from being mistaken for a larger hiring intensity.[5]

The survey’s scope also sets a limit on what readers can infer. A national vacancy figure does not identify the occupation, pay, location or terms of every open role, and aggregate results should not be used as a count of unique people looking for work. The industry, region and size-class tables add useful texture, but they still reflect survey estimates and the definitions used by BLS.[5] [6]

Job openings: a vacancy is more than an advertisement

A JOLTS job opening is an unfilled position on the month’s last business day. It must have a specific role and work available, be capable of starting within 30 days, and involve active recruiting outside the establishment. The role may be full-time or part-time, permanent, short-term or seasonal. It is consequently a survey-based vacancy measure, not simply a tally of online adverts.[3]

BLS excludes internal-only transfers, promotions, demotions or recalls; starts more than 30 days ahead; jobs accepted by a person who has not reported for work; and roles supplied by temporary-help, leasing, contractor or consultant employees. Active recruiting can include adverts, applications, interviews, agencies, job fairs and word-of-mouth outreach. Private job-posting series can therefore use a different universe and method.[3] [10]

A vacancy can leave the total because it was filled or because it was withdrawn without being filled. A higher number can indicate unmet demand, but cannot alone show where workers were hired or whether employers will recruit successfully. Read openings with hires, quits and layoffs.[9] [11]

Hires and separations: the monthly flow behind the headline

Hires are all additions to payroll during the month. They include newly hired and rehired workers, people hired and separated in the same month, some recalled workers and transfers from other locations. They exclude transfers or promotions within the reporting location and workers supplied by a temporary-help agency or contractor. Hires describe gross payroll additions, not net employment growth or newly created jobs.[3] [5]

Separations are all departures from payroll during the month: quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations. Other separations include retirements, transfers to other locations, deaths and disability-related separations. Total separations are therefore not layoffs alone. BLS aligns its hires and separations series with Current Employment Statistics because definitions and errors can otherwise make the series diverge over time.[3] [5]

The latest published release, for July, said openings, hires and total separations were little changed. It reported 7.3 million openings, 5.1 million hires and 5.1 million total separations, including 3.1 million quits and 1.7 million layoffs and discharges. These are July results, not a signal of August’s outcome.[4]

Why quits and layoffs are read together

Quits are voluntary employee-initiated separations; retirements and transfers to other locations are instead other separations. BLS says the quits rate can serve as a measure of workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs. It can provide context on confidence and outside options, but it does not record each person’s reason for leaving and is not a standalone verdict on pay, satisfaction or labor shortages.[3] [4]

Layoffs and discharges are employer-initiated involuntary separations. The category includes layoffs with no intent to rehire, qualifying suspensions from pay status, position eliminations, merger or closing-related discharges, firings and seasonal terminations. It is broader than a news count of announced redundancies and a national total cannot establish one industry’s experience.[3]

Ask whether hiring is moving with vacancies, whether quits are changing and whether layoffs are changing. Low layoffs can coexist with weak hiring, and vacancies can rise without a pickup in hires. Independent analysis similarly cautions against overreading a one-month move in openings or quits.[10] [11]

How to read the August data without overreacting

Start with total-nonfarm levels and rates for openings, hires, total separations, quits, and layoffs and discharges. Compare each with revised July data, then inspect industry and regional tables. A small national movement can mask sector differences, while a large raw difference may not be statistically significant. Compare seasonally adjusted series with like-for-like data.[4] [5]

Then consider the measures together. More openings with stronger hires is different from more openings with no hiring pickup; fewer openings with unchanged layoffs is different from fewer openings and rising involuntary separations. JOLTS is most informative as a map of labor demand and gross movement through jobs, alongside other official data and several months of results.[6] [11]

The report adds information for employers, workers, economists and policymakers. It does not by itself decide a Federal Reserve action, recession, wage outcome, trading result or company prospect. No August value, market move or policy outcome is known before publication; claims to the contrary are analysis or speculation, not report facts.[1]

Industry detail is especially important when the national picture looks steady. Hiring and turnover can be affected by seasonal patterns, business cycles and industry-specific events, so a sector movement should be described as that sector’s result rather than automatically applied to the entire economy. Rates help make comparisons across differently sized industries, while levels show the scale involved.[4] [5]

Revisions are part of the report, not a footnote

The prior month can change when August arrives. In the July release, BLS revised June openings down 177,000, hires down 16,000 and total separations down 14,000. It said monthly revisions reflect additional reports from businesses and government agencies and recalculated seasonal factors. A revision is a more complete or reprocessed estimate, not proof that the earlier release was improper.[4]

The BLS Handbook says preliminary JOLTS estimates are subject to revision for one month after initial release, with benchmark revisions annually. Its technical note says the January release can revise five years of data using newly benchmarked Current Employment Statistics employment estimates, revised seasonal factors and needed special adjustments. The 2026 update made data from January 2021 forward subject to revision.[5] [6] [7]

Compare August with the newly revised July value, not a saved month-old alert. BLS also describes sampling and nonsampling error and generally conducts analysis at a 90 percent confidence level. Its own language on significance deserves more weight than a dramatic headline about a small movement.[5]

What to check at 10:00 a.m. ET

Open the BLS summary first and record the August level and rate for each core measure. Then note revised July values, BLS language on significant changes, and named industries or regions. The tables provide detailed seasonally adjusted measures for openings, hires, total separations, quits and layoffs and discharges. This is safer than a social-media graphic that may omit a revision or mix rates with levels.[4]

Compare with other measures only after checking reference month, definition, adjustment and coverage. FRED republishes BLS total-nonfarm openings as a seasonally adjusted monthly level in thousands, while private posting indexes are not interchangeable with JOLTS. Indeed Hiring Lab’s latest snapshot, for example, discusses the July JOLTS rates while separately tracking its own posting index and wage data.[9] [10]

The best immediate conclusion may be precise rather than sweeping: what changed, where BLS found a significant movement, what was revised and what remains unclear. Return to the BLS release after 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time on 29 September. Until then, the confirmed facts are the schedule, definitions and rules for careful interpretation—not unpublished numbers.[1] [2]