In what could be termed as an encouraging sign for the US economic growth and the labor market, the employers offered more employment opportunities to the Americans as the job openings increased to a near 13-year high in October.
The Labor Department report, released on Tuesday, showed that the employers, excluding the farming sector, had 4.83 million jobs openings during the month. The October’s employment figures were up from 4.69 million in September.
If go by the government figures, the job openings have sharply increased since April this year across the nation and the figures for October was just shy of the August’s job openings of 4.85 million, which was the highest recorded since 2001.
Even though the employers were not quick enough to actually fill those employment opportunities, the surge in postings in the recent months has created positive sentiments in the market as well as among the analysts, who are seeing an accelerating economy.
With more job openings, the number of workers confident of switching their workplaces is also high. In October, 1.9 percent of total employees opted to quit their current jobs to switch for a better opportunity. Even though this was a tenth of a point lower than the figures recorded in September, the rate has also rose in the recent months and is expected to continue rising if the condition remains same in the market. Analysts say the prevailing market situation is at nearly the same level as it was just before the 2007-09 great recession.