Hiring Is Not Job Growth
This chart separates the large quarterly flows of private-sector hiring and separations from the much smaller net change in jobs. It uses four-quarter averages of national Census QWI rates per 100 beginning-of-quarter jobs; transitions are not counts of unique people.
What does it show?
In 2025-Q1, the private sector recorded about 16.4 hires and 16.3 separations per 100 beginning-of-quarter jobs. Those large flows produced net job change of only +0.1 per 100 jobs.
Methodology
Select national private-sector QWI aggregation level 33: all industries and all workers. Divide Hires All (HirA), Separations (Sep), and published Firm Job Change (FrmJbC) by Beginning-of-Quarter Employment (Emp), multiply by 100, and take the arithmetic mean of four consecutive quarterly rates. This four-quarter average follows Census guidance for reducing seasonal variation. It is not a count of unique people: one worker may generate more than one labor-market transition.