Professional and business services

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), the Professional and business services sector reported 1.5M job openings nationally during May 2026, paired with 960K hires and 923K total separations in the same month. The openings rate stood at 6.2% and the hires rate at 4.3%, meaning the sector filled roughly 65% 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: Professional and business services recorded 460K voluntary quits (2.0% quits rate) and 411K layoffs and discharges in May 2026, for a combined separations rate of 4.1%. 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 quits (460K) exceeding layoffs (411K), employee-initiated separations dominate, the pattern associated with a worker-friendly labor market.

Geographic concentration matters for anyone interpreting these aggregates: BLS does not publish a state-by-industry JOLTS breakdown, so state-level concentration for this sector cannot be shown here. Versus the same month a year earlier, Professional and business services openings expanded 21.3% - a meaningful expansion signaling durable demand. Every number on this page comes directly from the BLS JOLTS public dataset for May 2026; no extrapolations are applied.