This paper is the first to study vacancies, hires, and vacancy yields at the establishment level in the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, a large sample of U.S. employers. To interpret the data, we develop a simple model that identifies the flow of new vacancies and the job-filling rate...

Many theoretical models of labor market search imply a tight link between worker flows (hires and separations) and job gains and losses at the employer level. Partly motivated by these theories, we exploit establishment-level data from U.S. sources to study the relationship between worker flows...

Unemployment inflows fell from 4 percent of employment per month in the early 1980s to 2 percent or less by the mid 1990s and thereafter. U.S. data also show a secular decline in the job destruction rate and the volatility of firm-level employment growth rates. We interpret this decline as a...

We develop and implement a method to improve estimates of worker flows and job openings based on the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). Our method involves reweighting the cross-sectional density of employment growth rates in JOLTS to match the corresponding density in the...

Using data from the Employment Opportunity Pilot Project, we examine the relationship between the starting wage paid to the worker filling a vacancy, the number of applications attracted by the vacancy, the number of candidates interviewed for the vacancy, and the duration of the vacancy. We...

New data sources and products developed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of the Census highlight the fluid character of U.S. labor markets. Private-sector job creation and destruction rates average nearly 8% of employment per quarter. Worker flows in the form of hires and...

We develop a unique survey that focuses on the job search behavior of individuals regardless of their labor force status and field it annually starting in 2013. We use our survey to study the relationship between search effort and outcomes for the employed and non-employed. Three important facts...

We use a mix of new and existing data to develop the Aggregate Hours Gap (AHG), a novel measure of labor market underutilization. Our measure differentiates individuals by detailed categories of labor market participation and uses data on their desired work hours as a measure of their potential...

We measure job-filling rates and recruiting intensity per vacancy at the national and industry levels from January 2001 to September 2011 using data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. Construction makes up less than 5 percent of employment but accounts for more than 40 percent of...

We study the paths over time that individuals follow in the labor market, as revealed in the monthly Current Population Survey. Some people face much higher flow values from work than in a non-market activity; if they lose a job, they find another soon. Others have close to equal flow values and...