You Can’t Fire Them, They Quit

Wage growth for people switching jobs is strong, but it could spook the Fed

There are still far more job openings than there were before the pandemic. Photo: MIKE BLAKE/REUTERS

Johnny Paycheck didn’t have the guts to say “Take this job and shove it.” You can’t say the same thing for a lot of U.S. workers.

The Labor Department on Wednesday reported that the number of unfilled jobs in the U.S. at the end of January slipped to seasonally adjusted 10.82 million from December’s 11.23 million, and that the number of layoffs and discharges during January picked up to 1.72 million from 1.48 million a month earlier.

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