August 13, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Job openings rate in June 2008

On the last business day of June 2008, the job openings rate in the United States was 2.6 percent. The job openings rate was unchanged from May. Although the month-to-month changes in job openings data are often small, the trends over time are notable.

Job openings rate, seasonally adjusted, January 2005-June 2008
[Chart data—TXT]

The job openings rate remained essentially flat from August 2006 through September 2007. This was followed by a downward trend until March 2008, when the rate leveled off at 2.6 percent for four consecutive months.

These data are from the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. To learn more, see "Job Openings and Labor Turnover: June 2008," (PDF) (HTML) news release USDL 08-1142. These data are seasonally adjusted; data for the most recent month are preliminary. Job openings include only those jobs open on the last business day of the month.

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