Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey News Release — 2012-07-10

There were 3.6 million job openings on the last business day of May, little changed from 3.4 million in April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The hires rate (3.3 percent) and separations rate (3.3 percent) were essentially unchanged in May. This release includes estimates of the number and rate of job openings, hires, and separations for the nonfarm sector by industry and by geographic region. The number of job openings in May was 3.6 million, little changed from April. (See table 1.) Job openings increased for manufacturing, government, and state and local government. The number of openings also increased for the Midwest region. The level of total nonfarm job openings in May was up from 2.4 million at the end of the recession in June 2009.