US job openings edged down

US job openings edged lower in November from the prior month, government data showed on Tuesday, while the job openings rate also slipped. Job openings, a measure of labour demand, fell 80,000 to a seasonally adjusted 3.25 million, the Labour Department said in its monthly Job Openings and Labour Turnover Survey.
October job openings were downwardly revised to 3.33 million. In November, the job openings rate - a gauge of how many jobs were still open at the end of the month - fell to 2.4 percent from 2.5 percent in October. The rate of new hires slipped to 3.2 percent from an upwardly revised 3.3 percent in October, while the separations rate rose to 3.2 percent from 3.1 percent, the Labour Department said.
With the decline in November, job openings were 39 percent higher than the trough in July 2009, just as the worst US recession in decades was ending, the Labour Department said. In November, 4.2 million people were hired, little changed from October but 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 in November, which can serve as a measure of workers' willingness or ability to change jobs, was unchanged at 1.5 percent for total non-farm payrolls and 1.7 percent for private employers, the report said.
The layoffs and discharges level was essentially unchanged in November for total non-farm and total private payrolls but increased for government, the report said. US wholesale inventories unexpectedly fell in November as wholesale sales outstripped forecasts, a government report showed on Tuesday, offering a fresh sign of strengthening demand as the holiday shopping season got underway.
The Commerce Department said wholesale inventories fell 0.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted $425.5 billion. Economists polled by Reuters had expected a 1 percent rise in inventories. It was the first fall in wholesale inventories since December 2009. Wholesale sales in November rose 1.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted $370.1 billion, well ahead of forecasts for a 1.5 percent increase and the highest level since September 2008, when the financial crisis froze up credit markets.