Quitting your job for a better one is often how you advance your pay and career progression. So it could be good news that quit rates and pay are going up. But unemployment remains high and many jobs are unfilled. Normally quits and hires move together or with a slight lag. But an index of quits and hires from JOLTS show the correlation broke down during the pandemic and into the recovery. Some months they move together, other months not at all, and last month quits were up and hires were down, suggesting some people may be quitting their jobs and not moving into another one. One thing is for sure, the relationship between quits and hires does not make sense anymore, and neither does this labor market.

Source: Federal Reserve Economic Data

Allison Schrager is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Follow her on Twitter here.