Southern Workers Are Quitting More Jobs Even as Openings Shrink

The South’s labor market is sending two signals at once. Employers have fewer open positions than a year ago, but more people are voluntarily leaving their jobs.

In September, the region counted an estimated 2.747 million job openings, down from 2.922 million in September 2025. Yet the number of workers who quit rose to 1.472 million, compared with 1.234 million a year earlier. Hiring also increased over that period, from 1.959 million to 2.140 million.

Those figures come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ September Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, released Nov. 3. The preliminary, seasonally adjusted estimates capture a complicated employment picture, not an uncomplicated boom or bust.

Fewer vacancies, more departures

Job openings in the South fell by about 175,000 from a year earlier, a decrease of approximately 6%. Quits rose by roughly 238,000, an increase of about 19%.

A quit is a voluntary separation, not necessarily a worker leaving the labor force. Some people depart for a better job, different hours or a new career. Others may step away because of family needs, a difficult schedule or the cost of remaining employed. The monthly survey does not say which motive explains the regional rise.

The increased number of quits might indicate that more workers feel able to make a change, but it could also reflect churn in industries with persistent staffing or scheduling problems. Reading it as evidence of stronger bargaining power alone would go beyond what the data establish.

Why the South matters

Federal labor statistics define the South more broadly than the everyday term Sun Belt. The BLS region includes Texas, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and other Southern states, as well as Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia and West Virginia. Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico are counted in the West.

That distinction is important. The regional figures illuminate labor-market pressure across much of the Sun Belt, but they cannot tell us whether a restaurant worker in Florida, a warehouse employee in Texas and a health-care professional in North Carolina experienced the same conditions.

Across the country, there were about 7.5 million job openings in September. National quits increased while layoffs and discharges changed little. The pattern suggests movement inside the workforce, even as employers remain cautious about how many positions they are trying to fill.

Hospitality is one piece of the puzzle

At the national level, quits in accommodation and food services increased sharply during the month. That matters in the South, where tourism, restaurants, hotels and entertainment employ large numbers of people. But the national increase cannot simply be assigned to Southern hospitality workers; the regional breakdown does not provide that cross-tabulation.

The bigger distinction is between an available job and a good match. A posting may require specific skills, pay too little for the local cost of living, or offer shifts that do not work for someone caring for children or relatives. Meanwhile, a worker who quits one job and quickly starts another still appears in labor-turnover statistics.

For workers, employers and families, the question is less whether people are quitting than where they are going and why. Higher quit totals alongside fewer vacancies make that question more urgent, especially if wage gains fail to keep pace with housing, transportation and insurance costs.

September’s numbers are an early measurement, subject to revision. They show that Southern workers are moving between jobs and out of positions at a faster pace than a year ago. They do not yet tell us whether those moves leave households better off.