US job openings declined modestly in September from the prior month, government data showed on Tuesday, while the job openings rate dipped. Job openings, a measure of labour demand, fell 163,000 to a seasonally adjusted 2.9 million, the Labour Department said in its monthly Job Openings and Labour Turnover Survey. August job openings were downwardly revised to 3.1 million.
In September, the job openings rate - a gauge of how many jobs were still open at the end of the month - fell to 2.2 percent from 2.3 percent in August. Both the rate of new hires and the separations rate were 3.2 percent, unchanged from August, the Labour Department.
Although the number of job openings decreased in September compared with the prior month, they were 25 percent higher than the trough in July 2009, just as the worst US recession in decades was ending, the Labor Department said. In September, 4.2 million people were hired, 9 percent more than the June 2009 low. The number of hires was still lower than at the start of the recession in December 2007, when 5 million people were hired, the department said. The rate of people who quit their jobs, which can serve as a measure of workers' willingness or ability to change jobs, was little changed in September at 1.6 percent for total nonfarm payrolls and 1.8 percent for private employers, the report said.