Mubasher: The number of job openings announced by US businesses hit a new high in the last business day of December 2018, official data showed on Tuesday.

Job openings, a gauge for labour demand, rose 198,000 to 7.3 million last December, the Labor Department said in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). The job openings rate was 4.7%.

Moreover, hires were barely unchanged at 5.9 million during December, with the hiring rate at 3.9%, while the number of separations, including quits, layoffs and discharges almost was almost stable at 5.5 million, with a rate of 3.7%.

Within separations, the quits rate steadied at 2.3% last December, while the number of layoffs and discharges stabilised at 1.1%.

By 3:30 pm GMT, the US dollar index went down 0.09% to 96.9740.