JOB OPENINGS for August lowest in four months.

WASHINGTON — U.S. job openings declined in August for the first time in four months, pointing to a moderation in the pace of hiring as the pandemic drags on.

The number of U.S. job postings on the last business day of August dipped to 6.49 million, down from 6.7 million in July, the Labor Department said Tuesday. Those postings are off more than a half million compared with last year at this time, when employers advertised 7.17 million job openings.

The decrease in job openings was driven by fewer vacancies in the construction, retail and health care industries. Vacancies increased in manufacturing, food service and government.

Hiring in August edged up to 5.92 million, slightly above the 5.90 million job applicants hired the previous month.

“While labor demand held up more than we may have expected early in the recovery, that pace is not guaranteed to continue,” Nick Bunker, economic research director at Indeed Inc., said in a note. “The good news is that layoffs and discharges hit a historic low in August. For a recession and recovery characterized by lots of churn, this is remarkable, to say the least.”

But many businesses that received Paycheck Protection Program funding are nearing the end of the 24-week spending period, and the passage of additional federal aid remains unclear, which could increase business uncertainty in the coming months and hold back hiring.

Federal government hiring jumped almost 250,000 during August, largely because of efforts to conduct the 2020 census. The September jobs report issued last week, however, showed a decline in government payrolls as the canvassing began to wind down.

The government reported Friday that the U.S. economy generated 661,000 jobs in September. It was the third consecutive month of slower hiring after an initial burst as the U.S. emerged from virusrelated lockdowns in the spring.

The unemployment rate in September fell to 7.9%, down from 8.4% in August and a high of 14.7% in April. Before the pandemic hit, unemployment was at a 50-year low of 3.5% in February.

In August, 2.79 million workers quit their jobs, down from 2.93 million in July figure.

The number of people voluntarily leaving their jobs had been viewed as a signal of how comfortable people are in leaving a job to find a better one, but it may suggest something else now. With the job market still weak, economists believe some people are quitting to avoid becoming infected with covid-19, or to take care of children who can’t go back to school because of related lockdowns.

“More people quitting their jobs used to be seen as a sign of confidence in the economy that there was plenty of work out there, but this recession seems to have confused the meaning of this,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG, a global financial group. “There are not nearly enough openings around to take up the Americans without paychecks this recession.”

So far, the economy has gained back about half of the 22 million jobs lost in March and April.