Americans continued to switch jobs at near-record rates in February, with 4.4 million workers leaving their positions in a historically tight labor market.

Employers hired 6.7 million people in February, while reporting 11.3 million job openings, according to a report released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We continue to have an unusual amount of churn in the job market,” said Erica Groshen, an economist at Cornell University and former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “We were all just holding our breaths during the worst parts of the pandemic, but now that’s changing.”

The latest report builds on months of economic momentum, with U.S. employers adding a record 7 million jobs over the past year. The economy creating 678,000 positions in February alone, sending the unemployment rate to a pandemic low of 3.8 percent, Labor Department data show.

That strong reading – which added to the Federal Reserve’s resolve to begin hiking interest rates this month – has also given new leverage to workers as they look for more favorable working conditions and higher pay.

“The labor market is still raring to go with strong employer demand and increased worker mobility,” said Daniel Zhao, senior economist at the job review site Glassdoor. “We’re still seeing very strong job openings and quits, as well as layoffs at record lows.”

Jeff Gabbard quit his IT job in Indianapolis in February thinking it would take about three months to find a new position. It took less than two weeks.

His job search was a far cry from earlier in the pandemic, when Gabbard was unemployed for over a year. This time around, he says there were many more openings that offered perks like the option to work from home.

“Being able to work remotely really opened things up for me because all of a sudden I wasn’t just limited to Indianapolis,” said Gabbard, 57. “I could take a job anywhere.”

Interest in remote positions has been rising steadily among job seekers as they look for ways to improve their working conditions, according to Zhao of Glassdoor.

“We are starting to see more companies offering remote and hybrid options as they recognize they need to be more flexible to actually compete for talent,” he said. “Workers are using this to take advantage of newfound leverage to negotiate conditions that are beneficial for them.”

Joshua Waight quit his job at a 99 cent store in Sonora, California, in February, to stay home with his 8-month-old son. He’d spent the last year making minimum wage on the early morning stocking shift but grew frustrated by the lack of available hours. With his wife starting a new job at a nearby casino, it seemed like a good time to leave the workforce.

“I felt like my career wasn’t going anywhere and I wanted to be home for my son,” the 34-year-old said. “Working through the pandemic was difficult.”