The number of job openings hit a record high of 7.3 million in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday in a sign of the labor market’s strength.
The previous high was set in August. Data goes back to the year 2000.
The private sector drove the new record, with private entities accounting for 6.7 million job vacancies — also a record high. The construction industry recorded 382,000 new posts, far more than ever before.
Actual hiring was not quite as strong, at 5.6 million, up from 5.4 million the month before.
Altogether, job vacancies are up about 30 percent over the past year, while hiring is up 7 percent.
The new figures suggest that the recovery in job creation and hiring, which began in the Obama era and has continued under President Trump, is not petering out and may even be accelerating.
The labor market has remained strong even as the recovery has stretched on toward a decade. In the past three months, the economy has added an average of 241,000 net new jobs a month, more than twice as much as needed to keep up with population growth and keep unemployment trending down.
As a result, more of the population is working. For prime-age workers, meaning those between ages 25 and 54, the total employment rate rose to 79.9 percent in January, the highest such rate since the financial crisis hit.
Tuesday’s data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, known as JOLTS. The survey contains information about hiring and firing that isn’t available in the more widely watched monthly jobs report, but it is released on a one-month lag.
[Read more: Boom: Best economic optimism in 16 years, 50% ‘better off’ under Trump]
