Feds say fewer people are quitting their jobs

Yes, the US job market has been one long, sad country song for more than a year now.

But the “take this job and shove it” indicator may have peaked.The US Bureau of Labor Statistics said its so-called “quits rate” — or the number of jobs lost because of people quitting — sank to 3.6 million in May from 4 million in April. Indeed, the steep quits-rate drop was the big reason the overall number of people who left their jobs fell to 5.32 million in May from 5.8 million in April.The quits rate among private-sector workers — which has hit leisure and hospitality particularly hard — also fell to 2.9 percent from a record 3.2 percent.More people quit when the economy is doing well or they think they can find a better job. The $300-a-week federal sweetener to state jobless benefits has also been blamed for the inflated quits rate.At the height of the coronavirus crisis, the quits rate had fallen to a seven-year low of 1.8 percent.