Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey News Release — 2010-11-09

There were 2.9 million job openings on the last business day of September, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The job openings rate was little changed over the month at 2.2 percent. The hires rate and separations rate both remained at 3.2 percent in September. 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 September was 2.9 million, which was little changed from August. Although the month-to-month change is small, the number of job openings in September was 25 percent higher than the number at the most recent series trough in July 2009. (See table 1.) This trough immediately followed the end of the recession in June 2009 (as designated by the National Bureau of Economic Research).