US Job Openings Spike As News For Unemployed Improves

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jun 8, 8:40PM EDT · Published Jun 8, 10:20AM EDT

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Job creation numbers from last May improved even when Census hiring was backed out.

US job openings as measured by the BLS hit a 15-month high for April another affirmation that unemployment is likely to improve

There were 3.1 million job openings on the last business day of April
2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The job
openings rate increased over the month to 2.3 percent. The hires rate
(3.3 percent) and the separations rate (3.1 percent) were unchanged.
This release includes estimates of the number and rate of job
openings, hires, and separations for the total nonfarm sector by
industry and geographic region.

The statistics show a loosening in the labor market. This is probably due to improved exports and sales for consumer electronics and manufactured goods. Last month, there were 5.1 job seekers for each open job, near a historic high, and that number should fall.

The numbers are also indicate that productivity figures have crested at a remarkably high level . Economists have questioned whether companies can squeeze more effort out of their existing employees.

The one dark cloud in the labor stats is that many of the jobs being created are not full-time, and do not carry benefits. It may take years for those to return.

Douglas A. McIntyre

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.