Job Openings And Labor Turnover: September 2004 — 2004-11-09

The job openings, hires, and total separations rates showed little or no change in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The job openings rate was unchanged at 2.4 per- cent. The hires rate remained at 3.3 percent, and the total separations rate was essentially unchanged at 3.2 percent. This release includes estimates of the number and rate of job openings, hires, and separations for the total nonfarm sector by industry and geographic region. On the last business day of September 2004, there were 3.2 million job openings in the United States, and the job openings rate was 2.4 percent. (See table 1.) The overall job openings rate is 0.4 percentage point higher than its most recent low in August 2003. In September, the job openings rate showed little or no change for the major industry categories.