More American employees may voluntarily quit their jobs this year as an increase in wages and openings boosts confidence in the labor market.

About 2.2 million U.S. workers resigned in December, a 7.4 percent increase from a year earlier, based on seasonally- adjusted data from the Department of Labor. These employees represent 53 percent of total separations, the highest since June 2008.

This ratio has shown “good improvement and has been trending up” after hitting 37 percent in April 2009, the lowest since the data have been collected, according to Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group, an institutional equity-trading broker in New York. Readings above 50 percent imply “a reasonably good and improving economy.”

Workers are more likely to leave their jobs when they’re feeling optimistic about better opportunities, so the quits ratio is “inextricably linked” with consumer confidence, Colas said. A rise to about 60 percent -- seen in 2005 and 2006 -- would suggest “we’re really chugging along,” he said.

The share of Americans who say business conditions are “good” minus the share who say they are “bad” fell to minus 10.7 percentage points in January from minus 9.1 points the prior month, which was strongest level in more than four years, based on data from the Conference Board, a New York research group.

Rising Confidence

Even with the deterioration, this measure of confidence has risen 14.7 percentage points from January 2012.

“It seems clear that consumers anchor their judgment on business conditions to what they see in labor markets,” Colas said.

“Job creation is one of the primary factors that motivates people to quit their job,” said Gus Faucher, senior economist at PNC Financial Services Group in Pittsburgh. The backdrop of improved confidence, three years of net hiring and a decline in the unemployment rate -- from as high as 10 percent in October 2009 to last month’s 7.9 percent -- give “consumers the sense that it’s a better time to look at these other opportunities.”

Employers added 157,000 workers to payrolls in January, following a revised 196,000 advance in December, based on data from the Labor Department. This compares with average monthly gains of almost 181,000 employees last year, the highest since 2005. U.S. businesses eliminated about 415,000 positions a month during the 18-month recession.

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