Federal labor data offer a fresh look at U.S. job openings before the July jobs report

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its June 2026 Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey on Aug. 4, giving the country a fresh national measure of job openings, hiring and worker separations before the next monthly jobs report.

The release covers the United States and is produced by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is a separate labor-market indicator from the payroll-employment report, offering a different view of how employers and workers are moving through the economy.

What the June release measures

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, commonly known as JOLTS, tracks three broad parts of the labor market: available jobs, hires and separations. Those measures address different questions from the monthly payroll report.

Job openings provide a measure of employer demand. Hires show the flow of people into jobs, while separations measure worker movement out of jobs. Taken together, those categories can help describe labor-market conditions beyond the payroll count alone.

The June 2026 reference month is important because the data precede the July Employment Situation report. The two releases therefore cover different months and use different survey programs. The JOLTS release is not a substitute for the payroll-employment report.

The approved information for this article does not include the numerical results from the June JOLTS tables. As a result, this report does not characterize openings, hires or separations as having risen or fallen, and it does not attach a magnitude to any change.

Why the timing matters

The JOLTS release arrives as the economy enters the second half of 2026. Its value is in providing a timely indicator of employer demand and worker movement before the next payroll-employment update.

For readers, that distinction matters when interpreting headlines about the labor market. A payroll report can describe changes in employment, while JOLTS addresses vacancies, hiring and separations. Those measures may inform the broader picture, but the release schedules do not by themselves establish a direction or trend in any of them.

The data also give policymakers, employers and workers another national reference point for assessing labor-market conditions. The survey’s national scope means the release is intended to describe conditions across the United States rather than a single state, city or industry.

What comes next

The Bureau of Labor Statistics separately scheduled the July 2026 Employment Situation for release on Aug. 7. That report is the next major federal labor-market data point identified in the approved schedule.

Because the July Employment Situation and the June JOLTS release are separate products, readers should treat them as related but distinct updates. The Aug. 7 report will concern July employment conditions, while the JOLTS release discussed here concerns the June reference month and focuses on openings, hires and separations.

The immediate takeaway is therefore about measurement and timing, not a claimed change in labor-market conditions: the federal government has provided a June reading through JOLTS, followed days later by a scheduled July payroll-employment report. The numerical June results are not included in the information approved for this article.

Brian Bateman reports on jobs, wages and labor for 111things.com.

Sources

• Schedule of Selected Releases 2026, Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Current Employment Statistics, Bureau of Labor Statistics

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