There were 3.0 million job openings on the last business day of July 2010. The job openings rate increased over the month from 2.1 percent to 2.3 percent; it was 1.8 percent in July 2009. This is according to data released by the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The number of job openings in July was little changed from June. Although the month-to-month change is small, the number of job openings has risen by 704,000 (30 percent) since the most recent series trough of 2.3 million in July 2009.
Even with the gains since July 2009, the number of job openings remained below the 4.4 million open jobs when the recession began in December 2007 (as designated by the National Bureau of Economic Research).
This data is from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey and is seasonally adjusted. Data for July 2010 is preliminary and subject to revision. For more information, see "Job Openings and Labor Turnover — July 2010" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL-10-1242.
