The number of job postings in the United States “rebounded” in October from a 3.5 year low in September, a sign that businesses are still seeking workers even though hiring has cooled, reported the Associated Press.

Openings rose 5% to 7.7 million from 7.4 million in September, the Labor Department said Tuesday. “The increase suggests that job gains could pick up in the coming months. Still, the latest figure is down significantly from 8.7 million job postings a year ago,” wrote AP.

The report also showed that 3.4 million Americans quit their jobs in October after hitting a four-year low in September. An increase in quitting “is a good sign for the economy, because it suggests that people are confident enough to search for new job opportunities,” AP said. “And layoffs tumbled to just 1.6 million—below the lowest figures in the two decades that preceded the 2020 pandemic.”

As a whole, AP said that these figures suggest the job market might be stabilizing at a modest level, with hiring moderate but layoffs uncommonly low. The unemployment rate is at 4.1%, even though job gains slowed sharply in October, according to the monthly jobs report.

“There’s a lot of cause for optimism,” said Cory Stahle, an economist at Indeed. “The fact that job openings ticked up is always an encouraging sign.”

These new figures mean “there are now 1.1 available jobs for each unemployed worker, a healthy figure. Before the pandemic there were usually more unemployed people than openings.”

Still, the latest ratio is down from a peak of roughly two job openings per unemployed person two years ago, wrote AP.