# Laura Ullrich argues in Indeed Hiring Lab that workers are holding onto their jobs [Canonical reading](https://escapemeridian.com/readings/laura-ullrich-argues-in-indeed-hiring-lab-that-workers-are-7e5d9499) On March 13, 2026, Laura Ullrich argues in Indeed Hiring Lab that a slight rise in job openings has not loosened a “low-hire/low-fire” labor market. Openings reached 6.9 million in January, up from a revised 6.6 million in December, while the quits rate remained at or below 2.0% for seven consecutive months. Ullrich reads the low quits rate as a sign that workers see changing jobs as too risky: “Workers don’t quit jobs they can’t afford to leave.” She says this reluctance complicates job searches and leaves wage competition, career mobility, and economic momentum largely absent until quits recover. The report also notes that openings remain well below recent highs, despite January’s modest increase, and that financial activities had the largest month-over-month rise in openings. Ullrich’s conclusion is that the Federal Reserve faces competing risks: cutting rates could help the labor market but add to inflation, while raising them could curb inflation but further weaken employment. She says heightened uncertainty increases the probability that the Federal Open Market Committee holds rates steady at its next meeting. The report does not establish how long low quits or the broader labor-market pattern will persist. Headline and summary by Escape Meridian, prepared by Luna from the attributed source. A source check is not independent confirmation of the source’s claims. ## Original source Indeed Hiring Lab · Article Original source date: Mar 13, 2026 (2026-03-13). Date basis: Date from the publisher’s archive: its article address or archive listing. Added to Escape Meridian: 2026-11-07T21:38:23.441Z. First observed: 2026-10-30T21:26:23.385Z. Retrieved: 2026-10-30T22:02:02.995Z. - [January 2026 JOLTS Report: Waiting to Exhale](https://hiringlab.indeed.com/2026/03/13/january-2026-jolts-report-waiting-to-exhale/) ## Limits Text as retrieved on October 30, 2026; originally published March 13, 2026. ## Open question Will the quits rate recover, and what would that mean for job-switching, wage competition, and career mobility? ## Source-stated Laura Ullrich reports that job openings rose in January, while the quits rate remained at or below 2.0% for seven consecutive months. > Job openings increased slightly to 6.9 million in January from a revised 6.6 million in December - [Supporting source](https://hiringlab.indeed.com/2026/03/13/january-2026-jolts-report-waiting-to-exhale/) ## Source-stated Ullrich argues that workers’ low willingness to quit reflects the risks they see in changing jobs. > Workers don’t quit jobs they can’t afford to leave, and the continued softness in quits suggests that for most Americans, the calculus of job-switching still feels too risky. - [Supporting source](https://hiringlab.indeed.com/2026/03/13/january-2026-jolts-report-waiting-to-exhale/) ## Source-stated Ullrich says low quits leave wage competition, career mobility, and economic momentum largely absent until quits recover. > Until quits recover, the broader dynamism that drives wage competition, career mobility, and economic momentum will remain largely absent. - [Supporting source](https://hiringlab.indeed.com/2026/03/13/january-2026-jolts-report-waiting-to-exhale/) ## Source-stated Ullrich says the competing risks around inflation and labor-market weakness increase the probability that the Federal Open Market Committee holds rates steady at its next meeting. > This, along with heightened economic uncertainty, increases the probability that the FOMC holds rates steady at next week’s meeting. - [Supporting source](https://hiringlab.indeed.com/2026/03/13/january-2026-jolts-report-waiting-to-exhale/) ## Source and contributor context Indeed Hiring Lab · Publisher The publisher is identified here. No individual author has been inferred. ## Source media Media retrieval status: unchecked. ## Terms and references Reference context selected by Escape Meridian; separate from source evidence. Entity mentions do not establish authorship, involvement or endorsement. ## Indeed Hiring Lab Indeed Hiring Lab is the economic research arm of the job site Indeed, publishing analyses of job postings, wages and hiring trends. - [Explore this context](/entities/indeed-hiring-lab) - [Reference](https://www.hiringlab.org/) - [Reference](https://www.hiringlab.org/feed/) ## Editorial provenance Version 1. Publication ID: bd838ef1-6f59-dc59-7da1-b10d80cfbc9f. Prepared by openai/gpt-6-luna; grounding review by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5. Source check: uncertain by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5 on 2026-11-07T21:33:41.878Z. This checks fidelity to the source, not whether its claims are independently true. Editorial selection: accept; reasons: bridge\_admitted\_by\_model. Observation: bc8b182f921cfe58d063b34728abc4e235909db55b01a15c00e9a3d7b552aeb8. Source text hash: 0127c0dade71ae7877777c789bece5c74a9f03cc5751e01b0cdf28104018ba9c. ## Revision and source-check history ### Version 1 — 2026-11-07T21:38:23.441Z On March 13, 2026, Laura Ullrich argues in Indeed Hiring Lab that a slight rise in job openings has not loosened a “low-hire/low-fire” labor market. Openings reached 6.9 million in January, up from a revised 6.6 million in December, while the quits rate remained at or below 2.0% for seven consecutive months. Ullrich reads the low quits rate as a sign that workers see changing jobs as too risky: “Workers don’t quit jobs they can’t afford to leave.” She says this reluctance complicates job searches and leaves wage competition, career mobility, and economic momentum largely absent until quits recover. The report also notes that openings remain well below recent highs, despite January’s modest increase, and that financial activities had the largest month-over-month rise in openings. Ullrich’s conclusion is that the Federal Reserve faces competing risks: cutting rates could help the labor market but add to inflation, while raising them could curb inflation but further weaken employment. She says heightened uncertainty increases the probability that the Federal Open Market Committee holds rates steady at its next meeting. The report does not establish how long low quits or the broader labor-market pattern will persist. ## Original source Indeed Hiring Lab · Article Original source date: Mar 13, 2026 (2026-03-13). Date basis: Date from the publisher’s archive: its article address or archive listing. Added to Escape Meridian: 2026-11-07T21:38:23.441Z. First observed: 2026-10-30T21:26:23.385Z. Retrieved: 2026-10-30T22:02:02.995Z. - [January 2026 JOLTS Report: Waiting to Exhale](https://hiringlab.indeed.com/2026/03/13/january-2026-jolts-report-waiting-to-exhale/) ## Limits Text as retrieved on October 30, 2026; originally published March 13, 2026. ## Open question Will the quits rate recover, and what would that mean for job-switching, wage competition, and career mobility? ## Source-stated Laura Ullrich reports that job openings rose in January, while the quits rate remained at or below 2.0% for seven consecutive months. > Job openings increased slightly to 6.9 million in January from a revised 6.6 million in December - [Supporting source](https://hiringlab.indeed.com/2026/03/13/january-2026-jolts-report-waiting-to-exhale/) ## Source-stated Ullrich argues that workers’ low willingness to quit reflects the risks they see in changing jobs. > Workers don’t quit jobs they can’t afford to leave, and the continued softness in quits suggests that for most Americans, the calculus of job-switching still feels too risky. - [Supporting source](https://hiringlab.indeed.com/2026/03/13/january-2026-jolts-report-waiting-to-exhale/) ## Source-stated Ullrich says low quits leave wage competition, career mobility, and economic momentum largely absent until quits recover. > Until quits recover, the broader dynamism that drives wage competition, career mobility, and economic momentum will remain largely absent. - [Supporting source](https://hiringlab.indeed.com/2026/03/13/january-2026-jolts-report-waiting-to-exhale/) ## Source-stated Ullrich says the competing risks around inflation and labor-market weakness increase the probability that the Federal Open Market Committee holds rates steady at its next meeting. > This, along with heightened economic uncertainty, increases the probability that the FOMC holds rates steady at next week’s meeting. - [Supporting source](https://hiringlab.indeed.com/2026/03/13/january-2026-jolts-report-waiting-to-exhale/) ## Source and contributor context Indeed Hiring Lab · Publisher The publisher is identified here. No individual author has been inferred. ## Source media Media retrieval status: unchecked. ## Terms and references Reference context selected by Escape Meridian; separate from source evidence. Entity mentions do not establish authorship, involvement or endorsement. ## Indeed Hiring Lab Indeed Hiring Lab is the economic research arm of the job site Indeed, publishing analyses of job postings, wages and hiring trends. - [Explore this context](/entities/indeed-hiring-lab) - [Reference](https://www.hiringlab.org/) - [Reference](https://www.hiringlab.org/feed/) ## Editorial provenance Version 1. Publication ID: bd838ef1-6f59-dc59-7da1-b10d80cfbc9f. Prepared by openai/gpt-6-luna; grounding review by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5. Source check: uncertain by anthropic/claude-opus-5.5 on 2026-11-07T21:33:41.878Z. This checks fidelity to the source, not whether its claims are independently true. Editorial selection: accept; reasons: bridge\_admitted\_by\_model. Observation: bc8b182f921cfe58d063b34728abc4e235909db55b01a15c00e9a3d7b552aeb8. Source text hash: 0127c0dade71ae7877777c789bece5c74a9f03cc5751e01b0cdf28104018ba9c. ### uncertain — 2026-11-07T21:33:41.878Z — anthropic/claude-opus-5.5 Publication: bd838ef1-6f59-dc59-7da1-b10d80cfbc9f attribution — pass: The reading is one analytical article by Laura Ullrich at Indeed Hiring Lab. It correctly attributes the job-openings figures to the source and keeps Ullrich's interpretations, including her quits-rate reading and her FOMC outlook, framed as her claims. > By Laura Ullrich March 13, 2026 summary — pass: The reading faithfully conveys the central argument: a slight rise in openings within a persistent low-hire/low-fire market, low quits read as low worker confidence, and the Fed's dilemma. Terms are plain enough for a general reader. The quits rate is described in context, and the FOMC is spelled out. The title and question follow from the source. The omission of the geopolitical inflation point does not distort the meaning. > The quits rate is a critical barometer of worker confidence, and that confidence has remained stubbornly, conspicuously low. date — pass: The stated March 13, 2026 matches evidence.originalPublished and the article's dateline at day precision. The FOMC hold is presented as Ullrich's probability assessment, not an outcome. The kind is publisher-page, so no archive disclosure is needed. The reading does not use the carousel of related stories. The page was edited on 2026-03-26, but the dated material the reading uses sits in the core article body. > increases the probability that the FOMC holds rates steady at next week’s meeting support — uncertain: The summary says Ullrich claims 'this reluctance complicates job searches.' In the source, the persistent low-hire/low-fire dynamic complicates job searches; she does not tie this to workers' reluctance to quit. Smallest repair: attribute the job-search difficulty to the low-hire/low-fire dynamic. The other claims are directly supported. The page was also modified after publication (dateModified 2026-03-26), so the cited body text cannot be confirmed as unchanged from the original. > dominated by a persistent “low-hire/low-fire” dynamic that is proving difficult to break and complicating the job search for many Americans media — pass: No media is selected, and no verified candidate media was supplied. Leaving media empty is appropriate. ## Recorded references Explicit citations in public readings and public file attachments to this reading. Shared topics are not citations. Other artifact types need an explicit reference adapter. No public references recorded here yet. [Reference data (JSON)](/readings/7e5d94993d265c80b9fd22b218384d969e5cbd8eed913558ab7b196127be65d6/references.json) ## Corrections and challenges [Send a correction or an opposing source](https://escapemeridian.com/corrections/) [JSON record](https://escapemeridian.com/readings/laura-ullrich-argues-in-indeed-hiring-lab-that-workers-are-7e5d9499.json)