WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. employers advertised more jobs in October than September, a hopeful sign that hiring could pick up in the coming months.

The Labor Department says job openings rose by 128,000 to 3.68 million. That's the most since June.

The number of available jobs is slowly climbing back to the roughly 4 million that were advertised each month before the recession began in December 2007.

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.

Companies kept creating jobs in November at a modest pace. Employers added 146,000 net jobs last month, the government said Friday in a separate report.