Quick answer
- US employers had 7.5 million job openings at the end of September 2026 (a 4.5% rate) and made 5.4 million hires that month (a 3.4% rate), according to BLS JOLTS.
- There were 0.9 unemployed people per opening in September 2026, so the market is roughly balanced, far from the 2022 low of 0.5.
- SHRM's 2026 benchmarking data put the median time to fill nonexecutive roles at 39 calendar days; its 2025 brief put the median nonexecutive cost per hire at $1,200.
The most current hiring statistics come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). In September 2026, US employers had 7.5 million job openings and made 5.4 million hires, according to the BLS release of November 3, 2026. Openings are up about 5% from a year earlier but 39% below their March 2022 peak, and hiring has run at a steady, unspectacular pace all year. Below are the numbers by industry, business size and year, plus recruiting benchmarks from SHRM and job postings data from Indeed, with what each means for an employer trying to fill hourly roles.
Job openings and hires now
These are the national JOLTS figures for September 2026, seasonally adjusted, from the November 3, 2026 release. September figures are preliminary and will be revised.
- Job openings: 7.5 million (7,523,000), a rate of 4.5%. BLS called both "little changed" from August. A year earlier, in September 2025, openings were 7,169,000, so they are up 354,000, or 4.9% (Workzenly calculation from BLS data).
- Hires: 5.4 million (5,402,000), a rate of 3.4%, up from 5,244,000 and 3.3% in September 2025.
- Quits: 3.4 million, a rate of 2.1%. Quits rose by 375,000 over the year, which means more workers felt confident enough to leave.
- Layoffs and discharges: 1.6 million, a rate of 1.0%.
- Total separations: 5.3 million, a rate of 3.3%.
The two measures are counted differently. Openings are a snapshot of unfilled positions on the last business day of the month; hires count everyone added to payroll during the whole month. In September 2026, openings exceeded that month's hires by about 2.1 million (Workzenly calculation from BLS data).
The household side tells a similar story. The October 2026 Employment Situation, released November 6, 2026, reported payroll employment up 165,000, well above the 48,000 average monthly gain over the prior 12 months, with unemployment at 4.1% and 7.1 million unemployed people.
What this means for employers. This is a steady market, not a frantic one. Openings are not falling and quits are rising, so expect more of your own staff to test the market. Plan for replacement hiring, not only growth hiring.
Job openings vs unemployed workers
The cleanest single gauge of how hard it is to hire is the number of unemployed people per job opening. BLS publishes it in its JOLTS charts. Below 1.0 means more openings than unemployed people.
- September 2026: 0.9 unemployed persons per job opening.
- December 2025: 1.1, the only point in this list with more unemployed people than openings.
- December 2024: 0.9; December 2023: 0.7.
- 2022 low: 0.5, first reached in February 2022 and seen in several months that year.
- December 2019: 0.9, before the pandemic.
- April 2020: 5.0, the pandemic spike.
Turned the other way, September 2026 had 1.06 job openings per unemployed person: 7,523,000 openings against 7,109,000 unemployed (Workzenly calculation from BLS JOLTS and Employment Situation Table A-1, both seasonally adjusted, September 2026).
What this means for employers. The ratio is almost exactly where it was before the pandemic. Candidates are available, but not in the surplus that would let you post a low wage and wait. Speed and a clear offer matter more than at the end of 2025, when the ratio was 1.1.
Hiring statistics by industry
Openings and hires look very different industry by industry. The rates below are from JOLTS Table 1 and Table 2 for September 2026. The openings rate is openings as a share of employment plus openings; the hires rate is hires as a share of employment.
Comparing the two charts shows where roles sit open and where they turn over fast:
- Health care and social assistance had 1,479,000 openings but only 705,000 hires in September 2026, about 2.1 openings per hire (Workzenly calculation from BLS data). It has the highest openings rate and one of the lowest hires rates, the signature of hard-to-fill roles. See our healthcare staffing page.
- Accommodation and food services made 879,000 hires, up 158,000 from August, against 659,000 openings. Openings in the industry were 989,000 in September 2025, so they fell by about a third over the year (Workzenly calculation from BLS data). Restaurants hire constantly because people leave constantly; see restaurant workforce management.
- Retail trade was close to one hire per opening: 698,000 openings and 704,000 hires, with a 4.5% hires rate. More on that at retail.
- Manufacturing had 584,000 openings (4.4%) against 313,000 hires (2.5%), and government had 880,000 openings against 324,000 hires.
- By region, the openings rate was highest in the West at 4.8%, then the Midwest at 4.6%, the South at 4.4% and the Northeast at 4.3%.
What this means for employers. If you run a restaurant or store, your problem is churn: you will rehire the same position several times a year, so make each hire fast and repeatable. If you run a clinic or a care business, your problem is a thin candidate pool, so widen sourcing and expect openings to stay open longer.
Hiring statistics by business size
JOLTS also reports private-sector openings and hires by establishment size, in Table 7. An establishment is a single location, so a 12-location chain with 20 people per store counts as twelve establishments of 10 to 49 employees.
| Establishment size | Openings | Openings rate | Hires | Hires rate | Openings per hire* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 9 employees | 1,388,000 | 5.7% | 765,000 | 3.3% | 1.8 |
| 10 to 49 employees | 2,191,000 | 4.8% | 1,683,000 | 3.9% | 1.3 |
| 50 to 249 employees | 1,555,000 | 3.7% | 1,680,000 | 4.2% | 0.9 |
| 250 to 999 employees | 828,000 | 4.4% | 640,000 | 3.6% | 1.3 |
| 1,000 to 4,999 employees | 468,000 | 5.8% | 238,000 | 3.1% | 2.0 |
| 5,000 or more employees | 213,000 | 5.0% | 71,000 | 1.8% | 3.0 |
| Total private | 6,644,000 | 4.7% | 5,078,000 | 3.7% | 1.3 |
Source: BLS JOLTS Table 7, September 2026, seasonally adjusted, preliminary. *Openings per hire is a Workzenly calculation from BLS data.
- Establishments with fewer than 50 employees held 3,579,000 openings, 54% of all private-sector openings in September 2026 (Workzenly calculation from BLS data).
- The smallest establishments, 1 to 9 employees, had a 5.7% openings rate, a full point above the private-sector 4.7%, but a hires rate of just 3.3%.
- Openings at the smallest establishments rose from 1,064,000 in September 2025 to 1,388,000 in September 2026.
- Their quits rate jumped from 1.7% in August to 2.2% in September, while their layoffs and discharges rate fell from 1.2% to 0.5%, the drop BLS highlighted in its release.
What this means for employers. Small businesses carry more openings relative to their headcount and convert fewer of them into hires. Hiring is often a side job for the owner or manager. SHRM's 2025 brief found that recruiters at small organizations (2 to 99 employees) handle a median of 6 requisitions a year, against 20 overall. A simple, repeatable process matters most here. Our list of applicant tracking systems for small business compares options.
Hiring trends since 2019
The past seven years have run from a pandemic hiring freeze to the highest openings level in the JOLTS series and back to roughly normal. Figures are seasonally adjusted totals from the BLS JOLTS levels chart and rates chart.
| Month | Openings | Openings rate | Hires | Hires rate | Unemployed per opening |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 2019 | 6,699,000 | 4.2% | 5,951,000 | 3.9% | 0.9 |
| March 2022 | 12,301,000 | 7.5% | 6,619,000 | 4.4% | 0.5 |
| December 2022 | 10,902,000 | 6.6% | 6,163,000 | 4.0% | 0.5 |
| December 2023 | 8,520,000 | 5.2% | 5,583,000 | 3.6% | 0.7 |
| December 2024 | 7,295,000 | 4.4% | 5,292,000 | 3.3% | 0.9 |
| December 2025 | 6,550,000 | 4.0% | 5,272,000 | 3.3% | 1.1 |
| September 2026 | 7,523,000 | 4.5% | 5,402,000 | 3.4% | 0.9 |
Source: BLS JOLTS charts for levels, rates and unemployed persons per job opening, seasonally adjusted.
- Openings peaked at 12,301,000 in March 2022. September 2026 is 4,778,000 lower, a 39% drop (Workzenly calculation from BLS data).
- Compared with December 2019, September 2026 openings are 824,000 higher, about 12% (Workzenly calculation from BLS data).
- Hiring has cooled further than openings. The hires rate of 3.4% in September 2026 is below the 3.9% of December 2019, a pattern Indeed Hiring Lab describes as low-hire, low-fire.
- Indeed's Job Postings Index, which tracks postings on its site against a February 1, 2020 baseline of 100, stood at 103.8 on October 16, 2026, 2.8% higher than a year earlier, according to the Indeed Hiring Lab October 2026 snapshot. Hiring Lab later called it the first year-over-year gain in US Indeed postings in more than four years.
- The same Indeed snapshot reported posted wages grew 2.4% year over year in September 2026.
The two sources measure different things. JOLTS surveys employers about all open positions, posted or not; Indeed counts online postings on one job site. Both show more demand for workers in fall 2026 than a year earlier.
What this means for employers. The 2022 market, when every candidate had several offers, is over. But 2026 is not 2020 either. Openings have turned up since December 2025, and if that continues into 2027, the window for easy hiring narrows.
Recruiting statistics: time to fill and cost per hire
No federal agency measures time to hire or cost per hire. The most widely cited benchmarks come from SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, which surveys its members. These are medians from HR professionals at organizations of all sizes, not a random sample of US employers.
- Time to fill, 2026: SHRM's 2026 recruiting benchmarking, with data from over 4,600 organizations, reports time to fill "has decreased to a median of 39 calendar days for nonexecutive positions." Executive time to fill was unchanged from 2025.
- Time to fill, 2025: SHRM's 2025 data brief found the median was "about a month and a half" for both executive and nonexecutive roles. Executive time to fill fell from 60 days in 2022 to 45 days. SHRM measures from the day a requisition opens to the day the offer is accepted, in calendar days.
- Large employers are slower: organizations with 5,000 or more employees reported a median of 61 days for nonexecutive roles and 60 days for executive roles in 2025.
- Cost per hire, 2025: a median of $1,200 for nonexecutive roles, down from $1,244 in 2022 and 27% lower than in 2017, and $10,625 for executive roles, up 113% since 2017. SHRM's 2026 page says nonexecutive costs "remained relatively stable" and executive costs "increased substantially," without new dollar figures on the public page.
- External hiring: the median share of nonexecutive positions filled from outside rose from 93% in 2025 to 97% in 2026. Small organizations filled a median 100% of nonexecutive roles externally in 2025.
- Hiring difficulty: the 2025 brief cites SHRM's 2025 Talent Trends report: 69% of organizations reported difficulty recruiting for full-time regular positions. SHRM's 2026 page says over 2 in 3 organizations reported hiring struggles in 2026.
- Quality of hire: only 20% of organizations measured quality of hire in 2025, down from 27% in 2022. 61% of recruiting executives called a lack of qualified candidates a challenge.
SHRM's 2025 figures come from 2,371 members surveyed January 9 to March 3, 2025; the data are not weighted. Cost per hire there includes advertising, job boards, agency fees, referral bonuses, travel, relocation, recruiter pay and hiring systems, divided by hires. It excludes the cost of the vacancy itself and the new hire's ramp-up time.
What this means for employers. Thirty-nine days is a median across all nonexecutive roles reported by HR departments. For hourly jobs, a process that long can lose applicants who need a paycheck sooner, so measure your own time from application to offer. The paperwork after the offer adds time too; our new hire paperwork guide and job offer letter templates help you close faster.
What this means for employers
Pulling these hiring statistics together for a small or mid-sized employer:
- Expect replacement hiring. Quits rose by 375,000 over the year to 3.4 million in September 2026. Many of your openings next year will be backfills.
- Speed wins in high-churn industries. Accommodation and food services hired at a 6.1% rate in September 2026. When you hire that often, every day a role stays open costs you shifts covered by overtime or left short.
- Small employers convert fewer openings into hires. At 1.8 openings per hire for the smallest establishments (Workzenly calculation from BLS data), the gap is in process, not demand.
- Post the pay. A growing number of states require pay ranges in job ads; check pay transparency laws by state.
- Plan the first week before day one. A hire is not finished at the offer; use an employee onboarding checklist so new staff are ready for their first shift. Our employee onboarding statistics cover what happens next.
Workzenly's hiring tools keep job posts, applicants and offers in one place and hand new hires to onboarding with e-signed forms, so they show up on the schedule ready to clock in.
About this data
This page draws on five sources. BLS JOLTS is monthly; the September 2026 data were released November 3, 2026, and the October 2026 release is scheduled for December 1, 2026. JOLTS data for recent months are preliminary and are revised each month and with the January release. The BLS Employment Situation is monthly; October 2026 data were released November 6, 2026, and October 2025 household data were not collected because of the federal government shutdown. SHRM publishes recruiting benchmarks annually from member surveys. Indeed Hiring Lab updates its Job Postings Index weekly. Where we combine figures, such as openings per unemployed person or openings per hire, we label the result as a Workzenly calculation. We review this page when new releases come out. Journalists, students and bloggers are welcome to cite this page with a link back to it, and we recommend also citing the original source for each figure.
More workforce statistics: Unemployment rate by state · Employee turnover statistics · Onboarding statistics · Gender pay gap statistics.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary," September 2026 data, released November 3, 2026. bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS Table 1, "Job openings levels and rates by industry and region, seasonally adjusted," September 2026. bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t01.htm
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS Table 2, "Hires levels and rates by industry and region, seasonally adjusted," September 2026. bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t02.htm
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS Table 7, "Job openings, hires, and separations levels and rates by establishment size class, seasonally adjusted," September 2026. bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t07.htm
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS chart, "Job openings, hires, and separations levels, seasonally adjusted," through September 2026. bls.gov/charts
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS chart, "Job openings, hires, and separations rates, seasonally adjusted," through September 2026. bls.gov/charts
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS chart, "Number of unemployed persons per job opening, seasonally adjusted," through September 2026. bls.gov/charts
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "The Employment Situation, October 2026," released November 6, 2026. bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Situation Table A-1, "Employment status of the civilian population by sex and age," seasonally adjusted, September and October 2026. bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm
- SHRM, "2026 Recruiting Executives Benchmarking: Attracting Critical Talent," 2026. shrm.org
- SHRM, "2025 Recruiting Executives Benchmarking: Insights to Maximize Recruitment," data brief, 2025 (survey January 9 to March 3, 2025; 2,371 respondents). shrm.org (PDF)
- Indeed Hiring Lab, "US Labor Market Snapshot — October 2026," October 22, 2026. hiringlab.indeed.com
- Indeed Hiring Lab, Cory Stahle, "October 2026 Jobs Report: Some Tarnish Beneath the Headline Shine," November 6, 2026. hiringlab.indeed.com
Frequently asked questions
How many job openings are there in the US right now?
There were 7.5 million job openings on the last business day of September 2026, a job openings rate of 4.5%, according to the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey released November 3, 2026. That is up from 7.2 million in September 2025 but well below the March 2022 peak of 12.3 million.
How many people get hired each month in the US?
Employers made 5.4 million hires in September 2026, a hires rate of 3.4% of employment, according to BLS JOLTS. Monthly hires have stayed between about 5.1 and 5.4 million since June 2026. Accommodation and food services hired at a 6.1% rate, tied with arts and entertainment for the highest of any industry.
Are there more job openings than unemployed people?
Slightly, as of September 2026. BLS reported 0.9 unemployed persons per job opening that month, with 7.5 million openings and 7.1 million unemployed people. In December 2025 the ratio was 1.1, meaning more unemployed people than openings. At the 2022 low it was 0.5.
What is the average time to hire?
SHRM's 2026 recruiting benchmarking data, from over 4,600 organizations, put the median time to fill nonexecutive positions at 39 calendar days, measured from requisition opened to offer accepted. In its 2025 data brief, SHRM said time to fill was about a month and a half for both executive and nonexecutive roles.
How much does it cost to hire an employee?
SHRM's 2025 benchmarking brief reported a median cost per hire of $1,200 for nonexecutive roles and $10,625 for executive roles, based on 2,371 SHRM member responses collected January to March 2025. Cost per hire covers advertising, job boards, agency fees, recruiter pay, referrals and hiring systems, divided by the number of hires.
Do small businesses have more job openings?
Relative to their size, yes. In September 2026, establishments with 1 to 9 employees had a job openings rate of 5.7%, against 4.7% for all private employers, according to BLS JOLTS. Their hires rate was 3.3%, so they posted about 1.8 openings per hire that month, a Workzenly calculation from BLS data.