Largest number of Americans since 2008 quit in November, JOLTS survey shows

The largest number of Americans chose to quit and look for a better job in November since just before investment bank Bear Stearns went under in 2008, a report from the Labor Department revealed on Tuesday.

That came as the number of job opening Stateside increased by 82,000 in November to reach 5.43m (consensus: 5.45m), edging higher from the previous month's downwardly revised tally of 5.35m.

Government statisticians had originally calculated 5.38m job openings for October.

Tuesday's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed that more jobs became available in professional and business services, construction companies, restaurants and health-care providers.

Manufacturing and retailing on other hand saw declines.

New hires increased from 5.17m in October to 5.2m in November, with the hiring rate holding steady at 3.6%.

In parallel, about 2.83m people left their jobs in November - the most since April 2008 - up from 2.78m in the month before.

Nevertheless, the so-called 'quits rate', which reflects how willing workers are to leave their jobs, was unchanged at 2%, the same as when the recession started at the end of 2007.

However, there were only 1.5 unemployed people competing for each opening available, in comparison with 1.8 when the downturn began.

"Taken against weekly data on initial unemployment insurance claims, this morning’s JOLTS data show that the breakeven level of initial jobless claims rose a touch in November to 311k (previous: 303k).

The slight increase in the breakeven level of jobless claims, defined as the level below which initial jobless claims are indicative of payroll growth (assuming unchanged labor force participation), explains how job growth remained robust at year-end despite the modest increase in jobless claims," said Barclays's Jesse Hurwitz in a research report sent to clients.