WASHINGTON (PNN) - February 8, 2011 - Employers posted fewer job openings in December, the second straight month of declines. That's a sign hiring is still weak even as the economy is gaining strength.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that employers advertised nearly 3.1 million jobs that month, a drop of almost 140,000 from November. That's the lowest total since September.

Openings have risen by more than 700,000 since they bottomed out in July 2009. That's a 31% increase.

But they are still far below the 4.4 million available jobs that were advertised in December 2007, when the Depression started.

The figures follow a mixed jobs report released last week, which showed the unemployment rate fell sharply to 9% in January from 9.4% the previous month (which does not take into account that half a million people dropped off the unemployment rosters even though they have not found jobs). It also found that employers added a net total of only 36,000 jobs, far below what's needed to consistently reduce unemployment.

There are far more unemployed people than there are job openings. Nearly 14.5 million people were out of work in December. As a result, on average there were 4.7 people competing for each available job. That's below the ratio of 6.3, reached in November 2009, the highest since the department began tracking job openings in 2000.