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One of the most closely watched economic indicators in the US is quietly becoming less trustworthy. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, better known as JOLTS, has seen its response rate roughly cut in half over the past decade, falling from the high 60s percentage range to around 30% in recent periods.
That means roughly two-thirds of the businesses the Bureau of Labor Statistics contacts for the survey simply aren’t participating.
What JOLTS measures and why it matters
JOLTS tracks job openings, hires, quits, layoffs, and separations across approximately 21,000 establishments nationwide. It’s one of the primary tools economists and policymakers use to gauge the health of the US labor market.
The participation problem
The BLS collects JOLTS data over roughly 45 days using a mix of methods including computer-assisted telephone interviews, web submissions, email, and even fax. Despite that variety of collection channels, businesses have been increasingly opting out.
A decade ago, response rates hovered in the high 60s. Today they’ve sunk to the low-to-mid 30s. That’s not a gradual drift. It’s a structural decline that mirrors broader trends across BLS establishment surveys.
The risk is that the businesses choosing not to respond differ systematically from those that do. If, say, smaller firms or certain industries are disproportionately dropping out, the adjustments may not fully compensate. The result would be a labor market picture that’s subtly distorted in ways that are hard to detect from the outside.
BLS responds with transparency
On March 13, 2026, the agency began publishing a detailed series of JOLTS response rates alongside the January 2026 data release. The new disclosures include historical total nonfarm response rates going back to January 2015, giving researchers a decade-long view of the decline.
Starting with the January 2026 data, the BLS also began breaking down response rates by industry, region, and establishment size. The response-rates page was most recently updated on May 20, 2026, providing additional methodological context. In a related change, some state-level JOLTS data shifted from monthly to annual releases beginning in January 2026.
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