U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Job Openings and Labor Turnover, August 2026” (news release, September 29, 2026; August estimates preliminary)

On September 29, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that U.S. employers recorded 3.1 million quits in August, a quits rate of 1.9 percent, unchanged from July. Layoffs and discharges were essentially unchanged at 1.6 million, and hires, at 5.2 million, changed little over the month and the year. In the same seasonally adjusted series, the August quits rate was 2.3 percent in 2019 and 2.8 percent in 2022.

In the release’s own words, the rate “can serve as a measure of workers’ willingness or ability to leave jobs.” Ability is the word to hold onto. A low rate records people staying and leaves open why they stayed.

This week’s pieces kept finding the correction to a decision sitting somewhere nobody was assigned to look. Syndio’s CEO read the verdict on her May layoff in resignations from people she had counted on keeping, and in an application from someone she had let go. In the experiment from the October 2 piece, about a quarter of the people playing managers held back some or all of a worker’s ranking. In both stories the evidence reached the decision maker only because somebody acted on it.

My inference, beyond what the release claims, is that a labor market this calm turns down the volume on one of the few channels that carries bad news about a restructuring without anyone having to volunteer it. A resignation letter is feedback no manager can soften. When fewer people are able to send one, steady attrition after a cut says less than it did in 2022, and a leader who reads it as proof the cut held up is mostly reading the market. Someone has to be assigned to look for the other evidence, the gate dates that slipped and the former employees who came back through recruiting.