Pasadena, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/09/2010 -- Job openings in America increased to 3.4 million in October, up from 3 million in September. The data is from the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

This data means that October saw the fastest increase in the job openings in six months and also since August 2008. Although the economy added only 39,000 jobs in November, the high number of job openings in October suggests that employers are planning on hiring in the next few months. Most of the openings have been in the professional and service sectors such as education and healthcare.

Most of the hiring in the private sector that did take place was temporary help for the Thanksgiving and the upcoming Christmas season. The positions are generally in retail chain stores and postal delivery companies. This means that beginning in January a lot of people are going to be laid off once the packages are delivered and the sales season ends. BLS employment section chief Tom Nardone has said that around 2.5 million workers could be let go beginning next year.

Despite the miserable jobs growth, the fact remains that 150,000 jobs need to be created every month just to keep pace with the population growth. CEO A. Harrison Barnes of Hound says that the latest jobs report proves that people need to hold on to whatever work they can get. Hound is a job search engine and it has been able to find over 21,000 jobs in a day.