South By North Strategies, Ltd.

The latest version of the  Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that job openings remained scarce in December, the most recent month for which data are available. As the Economic Policy Institute noted in its analysis of the data:

This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the December report from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), showing that job openings increased by 63,000 to 2.5 million in December. At the same time, the number of unemployed workers decreased by 73,000 to 15.3 million, resulting in 12.8 million more unemployed workers than job openings in December, or 6.1 job seekers per available job … This is a slight decline from 6.3 in November.
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To absorb the over 15 million officially unemployed workers in this country, plus the nearly 2.5 million “marginally attached” workers (jobless workers who want a job but have given up actively seeking work and are therefore not counted as officially unemployed), job openings and hiring must rebound dramatically. This report offers no indication that that is happening — instead it adds to existing overwhelming evidence that it is time for substantial additional government action to revive the labor market.