Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey News Release — 2012-05-08

There were 3.7 million job openings on the last business day of March, little changed from February but up significantly from a year earlier, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The hires rate (3.3 percent) and separations rate (3.1 percent) were unchanged in March. 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 March was 3.7 million, little changed from February. (See table 1.) Job openings increased in the manufacturing sector. The number of total nonfarm job openings has increased by 1.3 million since the end of the recession in June 2009. The number of job openings in March (not seasonally adjusted) increased over the year for total nonfarm, total private, and government.