Americans quitting their jobs for better opportunities

The number of available jobs fell to 6.638 million on the last business day of May, down from 6,638 in May, according to the Labor Department’s latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS).

The number of Americans quitting their jobs remained at 2.4%, a multiyear high, while layoffs and discharges fell to 1.1% from April’s 1.2%.

Commenting on the latest report, Bankrate.com's senior economic analyst, Mark Hamrick, said, “In the latest JOLTS report from the Labor Department, we see that the total number of job openings in the U.S. has slipped from the revised high of 6.8 million reported for the previous month. Even so, this remains quite strong. And as with the June payrolls data, combined with the upwardly revised hiring numbers for April and May, employers are demonstrating that actual full employment is still in the future, over the horizon as it were."

When it comes to the amount of Americans voluntarily leaving their jobs, Hamrick added, "The rising number of people opting to leave their jobs, as evidenced in the quits data, up more than 200K to 3.6 million, is an indication more Americans have been feeling confident about making a move."