MORE JOB OPENINGS: U.S. employers advertised more jobs in October than September, a hopeful sign that hiring could pick up. The Labor Department said Tuesday that openings rose by 128,000 to 3.68 million.
MORE HEALING: The number of available jobs is slowly climbing back to the roughly 4 million that were advertised each month before the recession began.
STILL TOUGH OUT THERE: With nearly 12.3 million people unemployed in October, 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.
