July 12, 2006 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Hires rates by region, May 2006

The hires rate for the U.S. increased to 3.7 percent in May, offsetting declines in the previous 2 months.

Hires rates by region, seasonally adjusted, Dec. 2005-May 2006
[Chart data—TXT]

From April to May, the hires rate increased from 3.1 to 3.6 percent in the Midwest region. There were no significant declines in the hires rate in any region. 

From May 2005 to May 2006 the hires rate did not change significantly in any geographic region.

These estimates are from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. To learn more about job openings, hires and separations, see Job Openings and Labor Turnover: May 2006 (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 06-1200. Data for May 2006 are preliminary. Hires are any additions to the payroll during the month. The hires rate is computed by dividing the number of hires by employment and multiplying that quotient by 100.

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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.

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