Nelson Mompierre (L), from Coastal Wealth, speaks with Maximilian Kegley-Oyola about job opportunities during the Mega JobNewsUSA South Florida Job Fair held in the Amerant Bank Arena on September 25, 2026 in Sunrise, Florida.

Joe Raedle | Getty Images

Job openings surged in September, as did the number of workers who quit their positions, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday, while hiring also rose and layoffs dropped.

In its monthly look at labor market slack and worker mobility, the BLS reported job openings at 7.52 million, up 333,000 from August and well above the Dow Jones consensus outlook for 7.15 million.

As a share of the total workforce, the rate of job openings increased to 4.5%, up 0.2 percentage point from the prior month, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey .…