Job openings in the United States decreased in December to the lowest level in three months, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The number of positions waiting to be filled fell by 139,000 to 3.06 million, the fewest since September. The number of people hired and number of workers fired also dropped.

“The pace of recovery is very slow, and at the current pace, we need three or four years to merely get back to where we were” before the recession, said Henry Mo, an economist at New York-based Credit Suisse, in an interview with Bloomberg.

Job openings in December decreased by 4.3 percent, which was the largest drop since May, from a revised 3.2 million in November.

About 14.5 million Americans were unemployed in December, Bloomberg said, meaning that about 4.7 people were vying for every opening, up from 1.8 in December 2007.

There was a 100,000 decline in job openings in professional and business services, and a 63,000 drop in construction. Government agencies had the largest increase in openings with 114,000.

Employers hired 4.18 million workers in December, down 30,000 from November. Total firings decreased to 1.84 million from 1.85 million in the previous month.