Job openings across the U.S. dipped to just under 7.6 million in February 2025, according to the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary (JOLTS) report. The JOLTS report, which runs a month behind the BLS Jobs report, provides detailed data on the U.S. labor market including the number of job openings, new hires, quits, and layoffs, providing insights into the current state of labor demand.

7.6 million Job Openings in the United States

The number of job openings rose in January by 232,000 from December’s There were under 7.6 million job openings in the United States on the last day of February, representing a slide from January’s report of 7.7 million job openings, according to the BLS.

Job openings fell in key sectors including trade, transportation, and utilities (-163,000), private education and health services (-33,000), and manufacturing (-31,000).

Meanwhile, some industries reported more job openings including:

• Professional and business services, whereemployers reported 134,000 more openings in February, rebounding from a drop in the previous month.
• Construction employers reported 22,000 more openings, the sector’s second straight month of growth.
• Information, a sector that includes computer programmers and software developers, reported 14,000 more openings—up 7,000 year-over-year.

As of the last day of February, there remain fewer unemployed workers than available job opportunities in America.

Hiring Activity Holds Steady for Another Month

The rate of hiring has remained unchanged since November 2024, according to BLS. In February, U.S. employers reported just 25,000 more hires than they did in January.

Professional and business services employerswere the busiest across the U.S. labor market,hiring82,000 more workers than they did in January.

On the flip side, government hires fell for the second straight month (-21,000) as President Donald Trump’s administration held its first full month in office.

Within separations, quits (3.2 million) and layoffs and discharges (1.8 million) changed little. Total separations, as reported by BLS, include quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations. Quits are generally voluntary separations initiated by the employee and economists use quits figures reported by BLS in part to gauge workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs. Layoffs and discharges are involuntary separations initiated by the employer.

The number of quits in the labor market has held relatively steady for several months, but it is down from 3.5 million in February 2024 to 3.2 million in February 2025.

Sectors that are seeing increased quit activity compared to a year ago include construction and state and local government. However, most other sectors are seeing fewer quits than a year ago, and saw quits decrease in February—including information, financial activities, professional and business services, manufacturing, and others.

Federal Workers Flood a Weak Labor Market

One major shift ongoing in the labor market is a surge of applications coming from workers at federal agencies under DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) review, according to economist Cory Stahle.[LS1] 

Stahle wrote on March 25 that the shares of searches for horticulture and employee relations roles are more than 10 times above where they were last year, likely coming from impacted workers in diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) roles, and workers coming from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) workers.

These workers are seeking specialized work that they can do from home, at a time when there are fewer opportunities than there were just a year ago, Stahle writes.

“The precise number of displaced and/or soon-to-be-displaced federal workers remains unknown as plans shift and regulatory and legal challenges to some changes continue to unfold,” writes Stahle. “But early signals offer some clue as to the size of the potential influx of new workers into a so-far largely stable, but also gradually weakening, national job market.”

Elizabeth Renter, senior economist at NerdWallet, told Seeking Alpha that cuts in the government sector are “just beginning to make their way into the data,” as the latest JOLTS report only accounts for activity through the last day of February. Renter also said she expects employers across the U.S. to maintain lower levels of hiring for as long as there is continued uncertainty in the market.

“Employers were already hiring fewer people coming into the year, and continued increasing uncertainty across the board economy will hold hiring at lower levels,” Renter said.

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For Job Seekers

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Sources: BLS, Indeed Hiring Lab, Seeking Alpha