WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. job openings increased to near record highs in December, suggesting a deceleration in employment growth at the end of last year was largely the result of worker shortages. Job openings, a measure of labor demand, rose 150,000 to 10.9 million on the last day of December, not too far from an all-time high of 11.098 million reached in July, the Labor Department said on Tuesday in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 10.3 million vacancies. The nearly broad rise was led by accommodation and food s…