Hiring by industry: hires and hiring rates
US nonfarm employers made about 5.192 million hires in August 2026, a hiring rate of 3.3%.
At a glance
US nonfarm employers made about 5.192 million hires in August 2026, a hiring rate of 3.3%. These seasonally adjusted figures count additions to payroll during the month. They describe hiring activity, not vacancies, recruiting cost or the time needed to fill a role, and the latest month is preliminary.
- Hires are payroll additions during the month, not open positions at month end.
- Compare rates for relative activity and counts for scale.
- Industry totals contain subindustries; do not add every row.
Which industries are hiring?
Industry hiring rates for August 2026. Parent sectors and their subsectors are both shown.
| Industry | Hires (thousands) | Hire rate (%) | Month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total nonfarm | 5,192 | 3.3% | August 2026 |
| Total private | 4,846 | 3.6% | August 2026 |
| Mining and logging | 24 | 3.9% | August 2026 |
| Construction | 308 | 3.7% | August 2026 |
| Manufacturing | 332 | 2.6% | August 2026 |
| Durable goods manufacturing | 188 | 2.4% | August 2026 |
| Nondurable goods manufacturing | 145 | 3% | August 2026 |
| Trade, transportation, and utilities | 1,085 | 3.8% | August 2026 |
| Wholesale trade | 171 | 2.8% | August 2026 |
| Retail trade | 667 | 4.3% | August 2026 |
| Transportation, warehousing, and utilities | 247 | 3.4% | August 2026 |
| Information | 44 | 1.6% | August 2026 |
| Financial activities | 164 | 1.8% | August 2026 |
| Finance and insurance | 110 | 1.7% | August 2026 |
| Real estate and rental and leasing | 54 | 2.2% | August 2026 |
| Professional and business services | 935 | 4.2% | August 2026 |
| Private education and health services | 810 | 2.9% | August 2026 |
| Private educational services | 108 | 2.7% | August 2026 |
| Health care and social assistance | 703 | 2.9% | August 2026 |
| Leisure and hospitality | 905 | 5.3% | August 2026 |
| Arts, entertainment, and recreation | 155 | 5.9% | August 2026 |
| Accommodation and food services | 750 | 5.2% | August 2026 |
| Other services | 238 | 4% | August 2026 |
| Government | 346 | 1.5% | August 2026 |
| Federal | 26 | 1% | August 2026 |
| State and local | 320 | 1.6% | August 2026 |
| State and local government education | 158 | 1.5% | August 2026 |
| State and local government, excluding education | 162 | 1.6% | August 2026 |
What is the difference between hires and the hiring rate?
The total of 5,192 thousand hires equals about 5,192,000 payroll additions. Dividing hires by employment and multiplying by a hundred gives the hiring rate.[1]
A large industry can have more hires and a lower rate than a small industry. Choose the count for volume and the rate when comparing hiring relative to the workforce.[1]
Does a high hiring rate mean a role will fill quickly?
No. The survey does not measure a vacancy from posting through acceptance. Industry activity is context for a hiring plan, not evidence that a particular requisition will close quickly.[1]
Use your own application, interview and acceptance records to locate delays. Keep cost per hire separate from both industry hiring volume and vacancy duration.
Method and limits
The August 2026 observation is preliminary and subject to revision. Parent and child industries appear together, so summing the displayed rows would count some activity more than once.[1]
What this means for a hiring plan
Choose the industry closest to the role and compare both scale and rate. Set your recruiting budget and process targets using your own vacancies and outcomes.
Use the cost per hire calculator for your spending assumptions. The candidate interview questions guide helps structure the selection stage.
Data and method
Hires by industry, August 2026
The number of hires and the hire rate in August 2026, seasonally adjusted, for total nonfarm employment in the United States and then each industry JOLTS publishes.
- Source
- Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Release
- August 2026 data, released September 29, 2026
- Period
- August 2026
- Method
- Values are BLS's seasonally adjusted JOLTS hires series (JTS + industry code + 000000000 + HIL for the level in thousands, HIR for the rate), read from the BLS Public Data API for the latest month with a total nonfarm figure and copied as published. Industries are in BLS's order with BLS's names.
- License
- Public domain
- Retrieved
Limits
- August 2026 figures are preliminary: BLS revises them in the next month's release.
- JOLTS revises each month's estimates in the following month and again in its annual revision; the figures here are as published on the release date above.
- The hire rate is the number of hires during the month divided by employment, times 100.
- Industries nest: Total private and Government make up Total nonfarm, and each sector is followed by its parts, so the rows do not add up to a total.
- JOLTS counts hires, not hiring time or cost; it does not measure how long a vacancy stays open.
Sources & approach
Based on the public sources linked below. Job.com selected and organized the data; no internal company data is used.
- Job Openings and Labor Turnover SurveyU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics · Accessed October 23, 2026
See an error? Email support@job.com. Corrections are listed on the corrections page.
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