by Calculated Risk on 1/11/2011 02:06:00 PM

This was released earlier by the BLS: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary

There were 3.2 million job openings on the last business day of
November, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The job
openings rate was essentially unchanged over the month at 2.4 percent.

The following graph shows job openings (yellow line), hires (purple), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.

Unfortunately this is a new series and only started in December 2000.

Note: The difference between JOLTS hires and separations is similar to the CES (payroll survey) net jobs headline numbers. This report is for November, the most recent employment report was for December.

Click on graph for larger image in graphics gallery.

Notice that hires (purple) and total separations (red and blue columns stacked) are pretty close each month. When the purple line is above the two stacked columns, the economy is adding net jobs - when it is below the columns, the economy is losing jobs.

Note: The temporary decennial Census hiring and layoffs distorted this series over the summer months.

In November, about 4.118 million people lost (or left) their jobs, and 4.210 million were hired (this is the labor turnover in the economy) adding 92 thousand total jobs.

Even with the slight decline in November, job openings are up significantly over the last year.