Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey News Release — 2010-12-07

There were 3.4 million job openings on the last business day of October, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The job openings rate increased over the month to 2.5 percent. The hires rate remained at 3.2 percent in October, while the separations rate was essentially unchanged at 3.1 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. Job Openings The number of job openings in October was 3.4 million, which was up from 3.0 million in September. Since the most recent series trough in July 2009, the number of job openings has risen by 1.0 million or 44 percent. (See table 1.) This trough immediately followed the end of the recession in June 2009 (as designated by the National Bureau of Economic Research).