US workers were reluctant to quit their jobs in September as businesses showed no signs of increased hiring, a government report showed on Tuesday. The job separations rate, a measure that covers all terminations of employment, stood at 3.3 percent in September, unchanged from the previous month, the Labour Department said in its monthly Job Openings and Labour Turnover Survey.
The quits rate, a subset of total separations and a barometer of how easy it is for workers to change jobs, remained unchanged in September at 1.4 percent, suggesting a lack of confidence in the economy jump-starting job growth. Although fewer people are losing their jobs as the economy inches forward, the jobless rate rose to 10.2 percent in October, the highest in 26-1/2 years.
Over the 12 months ended in September, the rate of hiring fell in total non-farm, total private, and for government jobs, the department said. The job openings rate, a gauge of how many jobs were still open at the end of the month, rose to 1.9 percent from 1.8 percent in August, according to the report. The number of job openings has fallen by 2.3 million since June 2007.
The government survey lags many job market gauges, but it can provide additional insight into labour market dynamics. Over the 12 months ended in September, hires totalled 50.4 million and separations totalled 55.6 million, yielding a net employment loss of 5.2 million, the survey showed.
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