US job openings rose to 7.523 million in September from 7.190 million in August, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics said on 3 November in its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). Hires rose to 5.402 million, quits to 3.365 million and layoffs and discharges fell to 1.641 million. The September figures are preliminary.
Inside that total, the Information sector, which has the highest AI use of the six sectors in the Census Bureau’s latest business survey, is posting fewer openings than ever relative to the rest of the economy. Over the 12 months to September, Information accounted for 1.29% of all US job openings, by our arithmetic from the BLS series. That is the lowest share for any 12-month period since the series began in December 2000.
The business lever is labour demand: which parts of the economy are still adding vacancies, and which are not, while AI use spreads.
Business Pill · Financial Conditions
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on financial conditions: several prices pulling at once. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss the JOLTS release.
The key insight: As we read it, the September release points two ways at once: openings across the economy were 4.9% higher than a year earlier, while the Information sector, which has the highest AI use of the six sectors in the Census survey, took its smallest share of openings since the series began, even as its hires rose.
The BLS series put openings at 7.523 million in September, up from 7.190 million in August and 7.169 million in September 2025. The openings rate was 4.5%, up from 4.3% in August.
Hires were 5.402 million, up from 5.271 million in August. Quits rose to 3.365 million from 3.044 million, and the quits rate rose to 2.1% from 1.9%. Layoffs and discharges fell to 1.641 million from 1.768 million, and the layoffs rate to 1.0% from 1.1%.
Every figure in the @DeItaone post that relayed the release at 15:07 UTC matches the BLS series. The post describes August’s 7.190 million as upwardly revised; we could not open the BLS news release page itself, which returned an access error, so we read the figures from the BLS public data series.
Information-sector job openings as a share of all US nonfarm openings, 12-month totals, seasonally adjusted, December 2000 to September 2026 (September preliminary). US Bureau of Labor Statistics, JOLTS. The shares are our arithmetic.Animated: Information-sector job openings as a share of all US openings, 12 months to each September, 2002-2026, from BLS JOLTS series (seasonally adjusted; September 2026 preliminary). The shares are our arithmetic.
What Was Posted on X
US JOB OPENINGS RISE TO 7.52 MILLION IN SEPTEMBER
US job openings increased to 7.523 million in September, up from an upwardly revised 7.190 million in August, signaling stronger labor demand.
Hiring rose to 5.402 million, while voluntary quits climbed to 3.365 million, pushing the quits rate to 2.1% from 1.9%.
Meanwhile, layoffs declined to 1.641 million from 1.768 million, with the layoff rate falling to 1.0%.
@DeItaone relayed the BLS JOLTS headline figures at 15:07 UTC on 3 November: openings of 7.523 million in September, hires of 5.402 million, quits of 3.365 million and layoffs of 1.641 million. Each figure matches the BLS series values this piece uses as its primary source.
The Information Sector Is Shrinking as a Share of Openings
Information-sector openings were 116,000 in September, up from 91,000 in August but below the 119,000 of September 2025. Total openings were 4.9% higher than a year earlier on the same comparison, by our arithmetic.
Single months are noisy for a sector this size, so we sum the last 12 months. Information openings averaged 92,300 a month over the 12 months to September, 27.4% below the 127,200 of the previous 12 months, by our arithmetic. Total openings averaged 7.16 million, 0.8% lower.
As a share of all openings, Information was 1.29% over the 12 months to September, down from 1.76% a year earlier, 2.09% in the 12 months to September 2022 and 1.91% in the 12 months to September 2019. The high in the series was 3.48% in the 12 months to July 2007. All of these shares are our arithmetic.
Hiring in the sector has not fallen the same way. Information hires were 94,000 in September, the highest monthly figure since March 2023, and averaged 78,700 a month over the last 12 months, 6.5% more than a year earlier, by our arithmetic.
Professional Services and Finance: Flat Openings, Fewer Hires
The BLS sectors closest to the next two high-use sectors in the Census survey show a different pattern. Professional and business services posted 1.310 million openings in September against 1.267 million a year earlier. Over 12 months its openings averaged 1.263 million, 0.5% fewer than a year before, and its hires 984,400, 2.8% fewer, by our arithmetic.
Finance and insurance posted 289,000 openings in September against 257,000 a year earlier. Its hires were 104,000, against 152,000 in September 2025. Over 12 months its openings were 0.7% lower and its hires 13.1% lower, by our arithmetic.
For the whole economy, 12-month average hires were 0.4% lower than a year earlier, by our arithmetic.
Where AI Use Is Highest
The US Census Bureau’s Business Trends and Outlook Survey, in the wave collected from 5 to 18 October, found 24.6% of businesses had used AI in the last two weeks. By sector, Information read 46.4%, Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services 43.8% and Finance and Insurance 40.5%. We covered that release earlier today in Goldman’s AI gauge hits record 24.6%.
The two datasets measure different things. JOLTS counts vacancies and hires; the Census survey counts businesses that used AI. Neither dataset links the two, and the BLS series do not record why employers post or fill vacancies.
Connecting the Coverage
Our related pieces on AI, jobs and the macro backdrop:
As we read the macro side, a 2.1% quits rate and a 1.0% layoffs rate describe a September in which more workers chose to leave their jobs and fewer were let go; on a 12-month basis, total hires were only 0.4% lower than a year earlier, by our arithmetic.
As we read the sector figures, the Information pattern is fewer vacancies posted while hires hold up: openings 27.4% lower and hires 6.5% higher on a 12-month basis, by our arithmetic. The BLS data do not say whether that reflects AI use, interest rates or cost programmes.
As we read the link to monetary policy, the Federal Reserve held its rate at 3.75%-4% on 28 October; this release is one of the labour-market inputs officials watch, and we do not know how they will weigh it.
@DeItaone on X, 3 November 2026
“US job openings increased to 7.523 million in September, up from an upwardly revised 7.190 million in August, signaling stronger labor demand.”
Three Implications
FOR AI VENDORS SELLING TO INFORMATION FIRMS The sector posted 92,300 openings a month over the last 12 months, against 127,200 a year earlier, by our arithmetic, while 46.4% of its businesses told the Census Bureau they used AI.
FOR THE MACRO READ Openings rose to 7.523 million in September, the quits rate to 2.1% and the layoffs rate fell to 1.0%, in preliminary BLS figures.
FOR FINANCE AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICES Finance and insurance hires were 13.1% lower over 12 months and professional and business services hires 2.8% lower, by our arithmetic, with openings in both within 1% of a year earlier.
The framework’s FRED Test, a diagnostic for whether a workflow survives agentic automation, scores Frequency, Repeatability, Error tolerance and Decomposability, and argues: “Score high on all four and the workflow is automated within the cycle; score low on any one and the human stays in the loop.”
As we read it, JOLTS measures the economy-wide result of millions of such decisions, not the decisions themselves: the BLS data count vacancies and hires by sector, and cannot show which workflows were automated. The framework does not discuss JOLTS or the Information sector.
What Is Not Established
It is not established that AI use caused the fall in Information’s share of openings. The BLS data do not say why employers post fewer vacancies, the Census sectors are not defined exactly as the BLS ones, and the share also fell between 2007 and 2017, before the current wave of AI tools.
BLS marks the September figures as preliminary. Industry estimates are based on smaller samples than the national totals and move more from month to month, which is why we use 12-month sums.
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US job openings rose to 7.523 million in September, with quits up and layoffs down. Over the 12 months to September, the Information sector accounted for 1.29% of all openings, the lowest share since the series began in December 2000, by our arithmetic, while its hires rose 6.5%.
A note on sourcing. This piece is based on US Bureau of Labor Statistics JOLTS series values retrieved from the BLS public data API on 3 November 2026, after the release; the bls.gov news release page returned an access error to us. The September figures are preliminary. The 12-month averages, shares and percentage changes are our arithmetic. The AI-use figures come from the US Census Bureau’s Business Trends and Outlook Survey, as reported in our earlier piece. We did not contact the BLS.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
