Workers Are Quitting Their Food Service Jobs, And That's A Really Good Sign

Here's a good sign that the jobs market continues to improve.

Yesterday we got the March JOLTS report, which measures things like the level of "quits" in the economy (people quitting their job voluntarily). It showed a big spike in people leaving food service work. For the first time in a long time, 4% of accommodation and food service workers quit in one month.

Higher quits are good news. Quits mean people are feeling confident that they can get another job. Or they have a job lines up. Accommodation and food service quits, it stands to reason, are a particularly good sign, since people would only quit a fast food job for something that likely pays significantly better.

Matt Busigin created this chart comparing these quits (blue line) to wage growth. Not surprisingly, over the last decade, as the quits have risen, wage growth has followed right behind, as workers move up and demand more.