July 13, 2005 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Job openings rate in May 2005

On the last business day of May 2005, there were 3.5 million job openings in the United States, and the job openings rate was 2.5 percent.

Job openings rate, total nonfarm sector, seasonally adjusted, May 2001-May 2005
[Chart data—TXT]

The job openings rate was little changed in May compared to April, but has generally trended upward since September 2003.

In May, the job openings rate decreased in the manufacturing industry and in the Northeast region.

These data are from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey program. Find out more in Job Openings and Labor Turnover: May 2005 (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 05-1290. The job openings rate is the number of job openings on the last business day of the month as a percent of total employment plus job openings. Data for May 2005 are preliminary.

Happy 10th Birthday, TED!

The very first issue of The Editor's Desk (TED) was posted on September 28, 1998. TED was the first online-only publication of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For 10 years, BLS has been committed to posting a new TED article each business day, for a total of over 2,400 articles so far.

Find out more about the story of TED