Private payrolls rose by 230,000 in March, capping the strongest two-month gain since 2006, Labor Department data showed April 1.

According to Bloomberg, job openings in the U.S. increased in February by the most since December 2004, a sign companies are turning more optimistic about hiring.

The number of positions waiting to be filled rose by 352,000 to 3.09 million, the Labor Department said earlier this month in a statement posted on its website. The number of people hired and the number of workers fired also increased.

Private payrolls rose by 230,000 in March, capping the strongest two-month gain since 2006, Labor Department data showed April 1. Hiring must accelerate and continue to broaden out across industries to restore the more than 8.75 million jobs lost as a result of the recession.

Job openings increased 13 percent in February from a revised 2.74 million in January, the Labor Department report showed. The level of job openings in February was the highest since September 2008.

Compared with the 13.7 million Americans who were unemployed in February, these figures indicate there were 4.4 people vying for every opening, up from about 1.8 when the recession began in December 2007. The number of jobless fell to 13.5 million last month, pushing the unemployment rate down to 8.8 percent from 8.9 percent in February, the Labor Department reported April 1.