Are Americans still quitting?

The quits rate was consistent in February, staying at 2.6%. This is below its April 2022 record of 3% but still 13% above the rate in 2019, Bunker said.

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Layoffs also revealed some resilience in the labor market, despite fears at the start of the year that they would climb faster.

“​​The rise in layoffs last month seems to have been a head fake, with the aggregate rate still below its 2019 average of 1.2%,” Bunker wrote. “This isn’t to say layoffs aren’t increasing in some sectors. The rate in the Information sector, which contains many media and tech companies, rose by almost half a percentage point, to 1.9% in February.”

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With the labor market cooling but not at a rapid pace, the possibility of a soft landing is still in play. If weakening consumer demand brings down prices without tipping the economy into a recession, the Fed will have achieved its dual mandate of bringing about price stability without threatening maximum employment.

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