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Posts tagged with: "JTS3000QUR"

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Which workers quit more?

Obviously, workers move from job to job over time and across sectors of the economy. FRED has some convenient release tables you can use to create a graph like the one above, which shows the rate of voluntary turnover (quits) for workers in four sectors: accommodation and food services, retail trade, manufacturing, and government. It’s striking that the ranking of these sectors doesn’t change despite variations in their levels of employment over time.

The consistency of these and other sectors becomes even more striking once you strip out the seasonal adjustments, as in the graph below, created with another convenient release table. In fact, seasonal variation seems to be stronger than variation caused by the business cycle. For example, people quit more when the unemployment rate is lower.

If we look closely, we can see some details: It’s remarkable that, on a regular basis, monthly quits in accommodation and food services represent about 5% of that workforce. And, in both graphs, the government sector consistently has the lowest quit rate. Given the right circumstances, of course, even consistent patterns can change.

How these graphs were created: Go to the release tables noted above, select the series you want displayed, and click “Add to Graph.”

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.

View on FRED, series used in this post: JTS3000QUR, JTS4400QUR, JTS7200QUR, JTS9000QUR, JTU3000QUR, JTU4000QUR, JTU510099QUR, JTU7200QUR, JTU9000QUR

Quits by industry

FRED recently introduced “release views,” which make it much easier to split an economic aggregate into various components or categories. Here, we use the Job Openings and Labor Turnover release to examine quits and hires by industry. In the graph above, it is striking how the ranking of industry quit rates remains the same no matter how well the economy is doing. Also, the quit rates of some sectors respond more strongly as the economy improves. Naturally, one is more likely to quit a job when it’s easier to find another. This is confirmed by looking at the industry hiring rates in the graph below, where the ranking and trend of the lines are the same as above. See the spike for government hiring around 2010? That corresponds to temporary workers hired for the decennial census.

How these graphs were created: For each graph, go to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover release, find the right release table from the top list, check the industry series you want, and click on the “add to graph” button.

Suggested by Christian Zimmermann.

View on FRED, series used in this post: JTS3000HIR, JTS3000QUR, JTS4000HIR, JTS4000QUR, JTS6000HIR, JTS6000QUR, JTS7000HIR, JTS7000QUR, JTS9000HIR, JTS9000QUR


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