Department of Labor Logo United States Department of Labor
Dot gov

The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Quits as a percentage of separations, December 2008

February 11, 2009

Quits as a percentage of total separations—an indicator of employees' confidence in their ability to change jobs—dropped to 40 percent in December 2008, a new series low.

Quits as a percentage of separations in total nonfarm employment, seasonally adjusted, December 2006 - December 2008
[Chart data—TXT]

Total separations is made up of three components (quits, layoffs and discharges, and other separations), with quits contributing the largest portion.

The percentage of total separations attributable to quits has varied over time and has been trending downward from a high of 61 percent in December 2006. It ranged between 54 percent and 59 percent during 2007, and was 56 percent or lower throughout 2008.

These data are from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. To learn more, see "Job Openings and Labor Turnover: December 2008" (PDF) (HTML), news release USDL 09-0149.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Quits as a percentage of separations, December 2008 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2009/feb/wk2/art03.htm (visited March 28, 2024).

OF INTEREST
spotlight
Recent editions of Spotlight on Statistics


triangle