U.S. employers posted 7.1 million job openings at the end of November, down from 7.4 million in October and the lowest tally since September 2024, the Labor Department said Wednesday. Outside that month, it was the lowest in nearly five years. Layoffs also fell, indicating companies are holding onto workers even as they remain reluctant to expand payrolls.

The figures underscore a persistent disconnect between solid economic growth — which topped 4% at an annual rate in the third quarter of 2025 — and a labor market that has yet to translate that expansion into meaningful job creation, raising questions about whether hiring will catch up or whether sluggish job gains will eventually weigh on the broader economy.

The pattern economists describe as “low-hire, low-fire” has left job security relatively intact for employed workers while making the search for new employment far harder for those who are out of work. Wednesday’s report is the Labor Department’s job openings and labor turnover survey, known as JOLTS, and provides one of the Federal Reserve’s closely watched readings of labor-market slack.

Sector breakdown

Open jobs fell sharply in November in shipping and warehousing, restaurants and hotels, and state and local government. They rose in retail and construction.

The number of Americans who quit their jobs ticked up to 3.161 million in November, from just under 3 million in October. Quits are tracked as a signal of worker confidence — employees typically leave a position when they believe they can find something better or already have an offer in hand. Despite the monthly improvement, quits remain historically subdued.

December data offer tentative signs of recovery

Separately, payroll provider ADP said Wednesday that businesses added 41,000 jobs in December, a recovery after they shed 29,000 positions in November. ADP’s figures are drawn from anonymous payroll records it maintains for 26 million employees.

Small firms with fewer than 50 workers added 9,000 jobs in December, an encouraging reversal after shedding positions in prior months. Economists have noted that smaller businesses face particular exposure to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, with less capacity than larger companies to absorb or pass on the added costs.

“It is a slower labor market,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP. “The labor market isn’t falling off a cliff. We still see some job growth, and we don’t see an uptick in layoffs.”

The Bank of America Institute, which tracks the volume of paychecks deposited into its customers’ accounts, said hiring appeared to improve in December. Year-over-year job gains rose to 0.6% in December, up from 0.2% in November.

“It does look like, in our data, that the worst of the slowdown could be behind us,” David Tinsley, senior economist at the Bank of America Institute, said in a call with reporters.

The central question for 2026

A key uncertainty heading into the new year is whether hiring will accelerate to match economic growth, or whether continued sluggishness in job gains will eventually drag down the expansion. Economists also raise a third possibility: that automation and artificial intelligence may enable output to grow without generating commensurately more jobs.

Further data on the labor market’s direction will arrive Friday, when the Labor Department releases its monthly jobs report for December.