Job Openings And Labor Turnover: January 2005 — 2005-03-15

The job openings rate fell slightly in January to 2.4 percent, while the hires and total separations rates were unchanged at 3.5 and 3.3 percent, respectively, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. This release includes estimates of the number and rate of job openings, hires, and separations for the total nonfarm sector by indus- try and geographic region. On the last business day of January 2005, there were 3.3 million job openings in the United States, and the job openings rate was 2.4 percent. (See table 1.) The job openings rate trended upward from September 2003 through May 2004, but then leveled off. In January, the job openings rate decreased for private industries overall and for government. The job open- ings rate fell in the West region, but showed little or no change in the other regions of the country.