the numbers some 435 million workers quit in february most to take better jobs in a sign the us labor market is still the tightest it’s been in decades employees have more leverage over employers and they are taking advantage of it the number of people quitting topped 4 million last june for the first time ever and it’s now happened nine months in a row part of a pandemicera trend that’s become known as “the great resignation” before the pandemic the number of people quitting jobs averaged fewer than 3 million a month most who quit are finding new jobs and not leaving the labor force entirely however us job openings fell slightly to 1127 million in february the labor department said tuesday but remained near a record high there’s almost two open jobs for every unemployed person big picture the economy has a huge number of open jobs and layoffs are at record lows giving workers the opportunity to find better or betterpaying jobs wages are rising at the fastest pace in decades many companies are trying to hire as fast as they can because of strong demand for their goods and services but they complain they still can’t find enough workers the ongoing labor shortage is exacerbating high us inflation and making it harder for businesses to keep production going at full tilt market reaction the dow jones industrial average djia and sp 500 spx rose sharply in tuesday trades on hopes of the russiaukraine conflict easing