Unfilled jobs in the U.S. exceeded the number of unemployed Americans by more than one million as the summer came to a close, a sign it is increasingly difficult for employers to find workers.

There were a seasonally adjusted 7.01 million job openings on the last business day of September, the Labor Department said Tuesday. That compares with 5.96 million jobless Americans actively looking for work during the month that the unemployment rate fell to a 49-year low of 3.7%.