Openings Are Up 50% in Manufacturing, but Office Hiring Is Slower Than a Year Ago
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Employers had 7.5 million job openings at the end of September, up from 7.2 million in August and 7.2 million a year earlier. The openings rate moved from 4.3% to 4.5%, although the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) calls the change “little changed.” Employers made 5.4 million hires, and 5.3 million people left their jobs.
Quits increased to 3.4 million, up 375,000 from a year ago. The quits rate of 2.1% is up from 1.9% in August, although BLS also calls that move little changed. Layoffs and discharges were 1.6 million, a rate of 1.0%, and BLS calls the monthly change little changed.
Restaurants and hotels did most of the moving. In accommodation and food services, hires rose 158,000 to 879,000, separations rose 195,000, and quits rose 197,000 in a single month. The hires and separations increases are larger than the changes for the whole economy, which were 131,000 and 144,000, and the sector’s quits make up most of the 321,000 increase in total quits. Openings in the sector fell to 659,000, down from 989,000 a year ago. State and local government openings, excluding education, rose 104,000 to 519,000.
7.5 million openings and rising quits look like a job market waking up. The restaurant and hotel churn did most of the work, though, and that sector turns over constantly.
Office jobs tell a different story. In finance and insurance, openings were 289,000 against 257,000 a year ago, yet hires fell to 104,000 from 152,000, and the hires rate dropped to 1.6% from 2.2%. Professional and business services posted 1.31 million openings, up from 1.27 million, while its hires rate slipped to 4.1% from 4.5%. Health care has 1.48 million openings but a 2.9% hires rate, down from 3.5% a year ago.
In all three sectors, openings rose over the year while hires fell. Those employers have jobs posted and are in no hurry to fill them. JOLTS cannot tell us why, so that reading is mine.
Manufacturing stands out. Openings reached 584,000, up 50% from 389,000 a year ago, and construction openings rose to 298,000 from 206,000. If you’re hiring for skilled trades or plant roles, you are competing against far more open jobs than a year ago. Plan your pay and your timeline around that, and talk to us about hiring if you need help filling those roles faster.
JOLTS is the gold standard, and it is slow. September’s report arrives in November. A new paper from New York Fed economists Elizabeth Li, Giorgio Topa, and Jacob Weber tested LinkedIn’s job market data against the official numbers from July 2019 to April 2026. LinkedIn’s hiring rate tracked the JOLTS hires rate with a 0.95 correlation when the series started in 2021, which is a close match. LinkedIn’s Jobs per Jobseeker Index also did better than the standard ratio of openings to unemployed workers at predicting both price and wage inflation.
The timing is the point. LinkedIn’s data for a month can be ready in the first week of the next month, while JOLTS arrives with about a five-week lag. The authors caution that the measures capture only jobs posted and applied to on LinkedIn, so they are not necessarily representative of the whole economy, and they note that the views are their own and may differ from the New York Fed’s position.
If LinkedIn’s numbers keep tracking this closely, hiring managers can see a shift coming a month earlier. I would use them first for professional and office roles, which are where today’s report shows hiring is slowest. The paper does not make that claim, so treat it as my read.
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Fiserv Cut 3,000 Employees and Contractors, Including More Than 10% of Senior Management
Payments company Fiserv has reduced its contractors and employees by 3,000 people, CEO Takis Georgakopoulos said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday. Reuters reports the cuts have been underway since June. They include a reduction of more than 10% in senior management, and Fiserv had more than 38,000 employees worldwide at the end of 2025.
The cuts belong to a cost program called Project Elevate. Fiserv raised its savings estimate from Elevate to $1 billion, up from the $500 million it communicated earlier, and Reuters reports activist investor Jana had pushed the company to target $1.25 billion. Georgakopoulos also said Fiserv will exit smaller non-core products; he counted more than a dozen.
Fiserv’s third-quarter results show the cost of the effort. Severance costs were $83 million in the quarter, up from $27 million a year earlier, and $196 million for the first nine months, up from $56 million. Revenue was $5.20 billion, down 1% from a year ago. Reuters reports the shares rose about 9.5% in premarket trading, and Fiserv said it is “pursuing a number of initiatives to simplify the organization and operate more efficiently.”
The word I notice is “contractors.” The 3,000 combines employees and contractors in one number, so it cannot tell us how many of each. My read is that contract workers are often the easiest cost to move, and cuts there rarely make headlines. The reporting does not break out the split, so that is my view.
The senior management cut stands out too. A new CEO with an activist investor watching is going to flatten the org chart, and the market responded before the opening bell. Finance and insurance hiring slowed in this morning’s JOLTS data, and Fiserv shows what cost pressure looks like inside one financial services company. It follows the American Express layoffs and the Barclays job cuts I covered last month.
If you rely on contract talent, the Fiserv numbers are a reminder that flexible headcount moves first in both directions. Employers that keep a relationship with strong contractors can bring them back faster when budgets loosen, and our staffing services can help you plan that bench.
Employee Confidence Rebounded to 44.7%, but Entry-Level Workers Sit 3.8 Points Below Last Year
Glassdoor’s Employee Confidence Index rose to 44.7% in October, the highest level since March, up from 43.5% in September. The index tracks the share of U.S. employees who report a positive 6-month business outlook for their employer. September set a record low in a series that goes back to 2016. Even so, October sits below last October’s 45.4%, which Glassdoor Chief Economist Daniel Zhao says signals “how much angst workers have about the current job market.”
Glassdoor revises earlier months as more data arrives, and October’s figure runs through October 23. I covered September’s confidence index last month, and Glassdoor now shows 43.5% for September. The rebound is 1.2 points off that low.
The seniority split is the sharpest part of the data. Entry-level confidence rose 0.3 points from September but is down 3.8 points from a year ago, and mid-level confidence is down 2.7 points over the year. Senior employees dropped 2.4 points in October but remain 2.4 points higher than last year. The industry and seniority figures are three-month trailing averages.
Consumer-facing industries took some of the biggest hits over the year, even though consumer spending has held up surprisingly well, according to Glassdoor. Personal consumer services fell 6.8 points, arts, entertainment, and recreation fell 6.5 points, and restaurants and food service fell 4.1 points. Telecommunications had the steepest drop at 9.0 points, to 32.0%. Information technology fell 5.1 points after ongoing tech layoffs at eBay and Netflix and Microsoft’s voluntary buyouts.
Holiday hiring shows a split. Retail confidence is down 3 points, while transportation and logistics is up 5.2 points, the biggest gain of any industry. Glassdoor cites Indeed Hiring Lab data showing holiday hiring is moderately stronger than last year and has shifted toward e-commerce roles. Real estate fell 1.7 points, and construction, repair, and maintenance fell 2.6 points as rising rates are likely to crimp homebuyer demand. Human resources and staffing, our own corner of the market, sits at 54.3%, down 2.6 points from a year ago and still the second-highest of the industries in Glassdoor’s table.
The number I’d focus on is the gap between entry-level and senior employees. Entry-level confidence is down 3.8 points from a year ago, and senior confidence is up 2.4. The people with the most experience feel better about where their companies are going, and the people trying to get a foothold feel worse. The index measures what employees expect for their employer’s business and says nothing directly about hiring, so my read is that companies are holding onto the experienced people they have and getting pickier about who they bring in at the bottom. If you’re early in your career, the data backs up what you’re feeling.
A 1.2-point bounce off a record low does not tell me much yet. I want to see 2 or 3 more months before I call it a turn.
Tech is the one to watch. When employees at eBay, Netflix, and Microsoft feel exposed, I expect many of them to stop looking around and hold onto the job they have, which fits the employee loyalty survey I covered earlier. Strong tech talent becomes harder to recruit, even in a softer market. If you’re hiring senior people right now, plan on giving them a real reason to move.
