June 11, 2008 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Job openings rate in April 2008

On the last business day of April 2008, the job openings rate was 2.6 percent. The job openings rate was unchanged from March.

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

The job openings rate remained essentially flat from August 2006 through September 2007 and then began trending downward. In March and April, the rate has been at the lowest point since mid-2005.

These data are from the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. To learn more, see "Job Openings and Labor Turnover: April 2008," (PDF) (HTML) news release USDL 08-0787. 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