Editor's note: Below is part two of the UCCS Economic Forum monthly dashboard highlights. Part one published last Sunday. Tatiana Bailey is director of the Forum. Job openings in the U.S. have been increasing at a relatively rapid rate over the past several months with 8.1 million openings in March. That is up 40.8% from March of 2020 and up 8.0% from February of this year. This acceleration is also evident in our Colorado Springs job openings. Pre-pandemic in February 2020, our region had a very tight labor market with 19,004 open jobs with 12,325 unemployed people (0.65 available workers per open job). Fast forward to March of this year with a highly disruptive pandemic in between and we have 27,649 job openings with 24,441 unemployed people (or only 0.88 workers per open job). Of course, there are more open positions because the economy is reopening. But the speed at which the labor market has gotten hot again is noteworthy. Just last month there were 1.16 available workers per open job. And I don’t really see things slowing down as more businesses reopen (unless something unforeseen happens with mutations). There are a couple of important considerations, however.