Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey News Release — 2012-11-06

There were 3.6 million job openings on the last business day of September, essentially unchanged from August, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The hires rate (3.1 percent) was little changed while the separations rate (3.0 percent) declined in September. 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 September was 3.6 million, essentially unchanged from August. (See table 1.) The number of openings was little changed in all industries except government and professional and business services, where the number decreased. The number of openings was also little changed in all four regions in September. The level of total nonfarm job openings in September was up from 2.4 million at the end of the recession in June 2009.