American job openings barely budge in November

U.S. employers advertised about the same number of jobs in November as they did in October, suggesting that hiring will stay modest over the next few months. In a report released this morning, the Labor Department says job openings ticked up 11,000 in November to 3.67 million. That’s about 12% more than were advertised in the same month a year previous. The number of available jobs is slowly climbing back to the roughly 4 million that were advertised each month before the recession began in December 2007. More than 12 million people were unemployed in November. That means there were 3.3 unemployed people, on average, competing for each open job. That’s the lowest ratio since November 2008. Still, in a healthy economy, the ratio is roughly 2 to 1. Meanwhile, a separate report released this morning by the Commerce Department says U.S. wholesalers boosted their stockpiles in November by 0.6% as sales rose at the fastest pace since the spring of 2011. With the November increase, wholesale inventories grew to $498.9 billion. That’s 29.6% above the post-recession low hit in September 2009. The Associated Press has more on that report here.