What this index reads
Quit Pressure reads four things. The act: the JOLTS quits rate (30%) and hires rate (10%). The ability: how likely workers expect to find a new job if they lost theirs, from the New York Fed's Survey of Consumer Expectations (15%). The reward: wage growth for people who change jobs, from the Atlanta Fed Wage Growth Tracker (15%). And intent: searches for "quit my job" (20%) and "remote jobs" (10%). Each input is scored against its own last five years, and the weighted total is mapped to 0–100.
Why these components
Quits are what the index is about, so they carry the most weight. People quit when they can find something else and when leaving pays, so hiring, expected job-finding and switcher wage growth come next. Searches are the only weekly inputs and show intent before the monthly data does, but wanting to leave is not leaving, so together they carry 30%.
How to read it
Around 50 is ordinary for the last five years. Above 70 is a quitting market, like 2021–22. Below 30 is workers staying put, like 2024–25. When the search inputs run well above the rest, people want out but are not acting on it; watch whether quits follow.
What it does not say
It does not say whether workers are satisfied, and it does not count layoffs. The JOLTS and survey inputs arrive one to two months late, so recent weeks move mostly on searches. Search interest is relative, so it shows direction, not the number of people looking.
Revision — 2026-09-29
Rebuilt. The earlier version used only searches ("quit my job", "remote jobs", "severance") and read 66.6 on 2026-09-29. Three fixes: the search feed had been storing Google's unfinished current week, which pulled the index down every Sunday; "severance" searches rise with layoffs, not quits, so it was removed; and searches alone showed intent while actual quits sat near a five-year low. The rebuilt index reads about 37. History was rescored on the new definition.