华盛顿——周二的一份报告清楚地说明了美国雇主难以填补职位空缺的一个原因:美国人正成群结队地辞职。
美国劳工部表示，8月份离职人数跃升至430万，是2000年12月以来的最高纪录，高于7月份的400万。这相当于近3%的劳动力。报告显示，8月份的招聘速度也有所放缓，可提供的工作岗位数量从上月创纪录的1110万个降至1040万个。
这些数据有助于填补一个笼罩在就业市场上的难题:8月和9月，尽管公布的就业岗位数量接近创纪录水平，但招聘速度大幅放缓。在过去的一年里，公开职位增加了62%。然而，从周二的报告来看，总体招聘人数在此期间实际上略有下降。
离职人数的激增强烈表明，对德尔塔变量的恐惧是劳动力短缺的部分原因。除了辞职，对这种疾病的恐惧可能导致许多失业的人不去寻找或接受工作。
随着8月份新冠肺炎病例激增，餐馆和酒店的离职人数较前一个月激增，零售和教育等其他面向公众的工作也有所增加。8月份，近90万人离开了餐馆、酒吧和酒店，比7月份增加了21%。零售业工人的辞职人数上升了6%。
然而在制造业、建筑业和运输和仓储，几乎没有增加。在专业和商业服务领域，包括法律、工程和建筑等领域，大多数员工可以在家工作，辞职基本上没有变化。
其他因素也可能是导致辞职的原因。随着许多雇主对工人的极度渴望和工资的健康增长，工人们有更大的能力要求更高的工资，或者去其他地方寻找。
8月份的数据可能还太早，无法反映疫苗授权的影响。乔·拜登总统的任期直到9月9日才宣布。联合航空公司在8月初宣布了其授权，但它是首批这样做的公司之一。报告发现，8月份的裁员人数没有变化。
政府周五表示，9月份就业增长连续第二个月疲软，仅增加19.4万个就业岗位，尽管失业率从5.2%降至4.8%。周五的招聘数字是扣除离职、退休和裁员后的净总数。周二的报告被称为就业机会和劳动力流动调查，包括原始数据，显示8月份的总招聘人数从7月份的680万人大幅下降至630万人。
BMO资本市场的经济学家珍妮弗·李在一封电子邮件中说，这些数据“突出了企业正在处理的巨大问题”。“人不够。设备和/或零件不足。与此同时，客户正在等待他们的订单，或者等待下订单。这是一个多么奇怪的世界啊。”
政府表示，南部和中西部地区的退出人数也上升最多，这两个地区8月份的COVID疫情最严重。
当工人辞职时，这通常被视为就业市场的一个好迹象，因为人们通常会在已经有其他职位或有信心找到工作时离开工作。8月份的大幅增长可能确实反映了工人们的一些信心。
但离职人数的增加主要集中在与公众密切接触的行业，这一事实表明，对COVID的恐惧也发挥了很大作用。许多人可能已经辞职，即使没有其他工作可做。
职位空缺的急剧增加还有一个国际层面:英国的职位空缺达到了创纪录的水平，尽管部分原因是许多欧洲工人在此之后离开了英国英国退出欧盟。
Americans quit their jobs at a record pace in August
WASHINGTON -- One reason America's employers are having trouble filling jobs was starkly illustrated in a report Tuesday: Americans are quitting in droves.
The Labor Department said that quits jumped to 4.3 million in August, the highest on records dating back to December 2000, and up from 4 million in July. That's equivalent to nearly 3% of the workforce. Hiring also slowed in August, the report showed, and the number of jobs available fell to 10.4 million, from a record high of 11.1 million the previous month.
The data helps fill in a puzzle that is looming over the job market: Hiring slowed sharply in August and September, even as the number of posted jobs was near record levels. In the past year, open jobs have increased 62%. Yet overall hiring, as measured by Tuesday's report, has actually declined slightly during that time.
The jump in quits strongly suggests that fear of the delta variant is partly responsible for the shortfall in workers. In addition to driving quits, fear of the disease probably caused plenty of those out of work to not look for, or take, jobs.
As COVID-19 cases surged in August, quits soared in restaurants and hotels from the previous month and rose in other public-facing jobs, such as retail and education. Nearly 900,000 people left jobs at restaurants, bars, and hotels in August, up 21% from July. Quits by retail workers rose 6%.
Yet in industries such as manufacturing, construction, andtransportationand warehousing, quits barely increased. In professional and business services, which includes fields such as law, engineering, and architecture, where most employees can work from home, quitting was largely flat.
Other factors also likely contributed to the jump in quits. With many employers desperate for workers and wages rising at a healthy pace, workers have a much greater ability to demand higher pay, or go elsewhere to find it.
The data from August is probably too early to reflect the impact of vaccine mandates. President Joe Biden's mandate was not announced until Sept. 9. United Airlines announced its mandate in early August, but it was one of the first companies to do so. And layoffs were unchanged in August, the report found.
The government said Friday that job gains were weak for a second straight month in September, with only 194,000 jobs added, though the unemployment rate fell to 4.8% from 5.2%. Friday's hiring figure is a net total, after quits, retirements, and layoffs are taken into account. Tuesday's report, known as the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, includes raw figures, and showed that total hiring in August fell sharply, to 6.3 million from 6.8 million in July.
The data is “highlighting the immense problems businesses are dealing with,” said Jennifer Lee, an economist at BMO Capital Markets, in an email. “Not enough people. Not enough equipment and/or parts. Meantime, customers are waiting for their orders, or waiting to place their orders. What a strange world this is."
Quits also rose the most in the South and Midwest, the government said, the two regions with the worst COVID outbreaks in August.
When workers quit, it is typically seen as a good sign for the job market, because people usually leave jobs when they already have other positions or are confident they can find one. The large increase in August probably does reflect some of that confidence among workers.
But the fact that the increase in quits was heavily concentrated in sectors that involve close contact with the public is a sign that fear of COVID also played a large role. Many people may have quit even without other jobs to take.
The sharp increase in job openings also has an international dimension: Job vacancies have reached a record level in the United Kingdom, though that is partly because many European workers left the U.K. afterBrexit.
