Job openings fall to nine-year low

WASHINGTON - Job openings fell in July to the lowest level in nine years, according to a Labor Department report yesterday, as businesses remain reluctant to hire despite signs the economy is improving.

The department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey, or JOLTS report, found that businesses and government advertised 2.4 million open positions on the last day in July, down 100,000 from June. The July figure was the lowest since the government began compiling the data in December 2000.

Still, jobs are being added in some sectors, such as health care and technology.

The report underscored the tough competition that jobless Americans face. With 14.5 million unemployed people in July and only 2.4 million openings, that meant there were six unemployed people, on average, for every job opening.

The report also added to evidence that companies likely will wait until the economy is clearly recovering before hiring again. Many analysts say they believe the economy is likely to grow at a healthy 3 percent rate in the second half of this year, pulling the country out of the worst recession since the 1930s. But they also worry that the growth will be difficult to sustain, particularly once government stimulus measures, such as the "Cash for Clunkers" automobile program that ended last month, are no longer in effect.

To be sure, there are some signs that hiring is slowly resuming. About one-third of companies in the manufacturing and service sectors plan to add jobs in September, according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management. That is the highest combined total for the two sectors since October 2008, the group said.

And online job postings increased 5 percent in August from July, according to the Conference Board, a business-research group. Job listings rose 169,000 to 3.5 million, the board said, though that is down from 4.6 million a year earlier.