Arts, entertainment, and recreation

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), the Arts, entertainment, and recreation sector reported 142 job openings nationally during Dec 2025, paired with 151 hires and 140 total separations in the same month. The openings rate stood at 5.0% and the hires rate at 5.6%, meaning the sector filled roughly 106% of posted positions during the reference month. A fill ratio well below 100% indicates openings outpacing hires — a durable signal of structural labor demand rather than temporary seasonal tightness. These figures measure the national aggregate for the sector, computed by BLS from the JOLTS establishment survey and benchmarked to Current Employment Statistics estimates; they do not include self-employed workers or agricultural employment.

Turnover dynamics tell the deeper story: Arts, entertainment, and recreation recorded 60 voluntary quits (2.2% quits rate) and 79 layoffs and discharges in Dec 2025, for a combined separations rate of 5.2%. The quits rate — the single most-watched JOLTS metric — captures worker confidence: it remains near the historical norm of around 2.0%, consistent with a balanced labor market in this sector. With layoffs (79) approaching or exceeding voluntary quits (60), employer-initiated separations dominate — a signal that demand in the sector may be cooling.

Geographic concentration matters for anyone interpreting these aggregates: state-level rankings in the table below show where sector demand concentrates. Versus the same month a year earlier, Arts, entertainment, and recreation openings contracted 22.8% — a double-digit decline of a magnitude historically associated with early-stage sector cooling. Every number on this page comes directly from the BLS JOLTS public dataset for Dec 2025; no extrapolations are applied.