Job offers rising as economy continues to warm up

bridged: Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the economy gradually recovers, some big U.S. companies are cranking up their recruiting and advertising thousands of job openings, ranging from retail clerks and nurses to bank tellers and experts in cloud computing. Many of the new jobs are in retailing, accounting, consulting, health care, telecommunications and defense-related industries, according to data collected for The Wall Street Journal by Indeed.com.
 The number of U.S. job postings on the Internet rose to 4.7 million on Dec. 1, up from 2.7 million a year earlier. While some big companies are expanding, others are merely replacing workers who are retiring or otherwise moving on. It's important to note that many of the current available jobs require experience and technical expertise that fewer job seekers can muster. Jobs that don't require these things are still seeing a flood of applicants for each opening.

New claims for unemployment benefits fell just 3,000 at the end of December to 420,000, indicating a slight slowing of job losses. But companies are racking up profits and now have built strong cash positions, and may be ready to hire again in 2011. As consumer confidence revives, the economy should continue a gradual recovery that encourages more companies to hire. Government data shows a rising trend in openings. There were 3.2 million private-sector job openings at the end of October, up from 2.3 million a year earlier but well below the 3.7 million in October 2007, before the recession, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.