

FEWEST IN FIVE MONTHS: The Labor Department said Tuesday that job openings dropped by 100,000 to 3.56 million, the fewest since April. August's openings were revised up to 3.66 million.

HEAVY COMPETITION: With 12.1 million people unemployed in September, there were 3.4 unemployed people, on average, competing for each open job, about the same as the previous month. In a healthy economy, that ratio is roughly 2 to 1.