South By North Strategies, Ltd.

From the Economic Policy Institute’s analysis of the June version of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) …

The total number of job openings in June was 2.9 million, while Current Population Survey data for that month shows that the total number of unemployed workers was 14.6 million. This means that the ratio of unemployed workers to job openings was 5.0-to-1, a slight improvement from the revised May ratio of 5.1-to-1. Importantly, this ratio does not measure the number of applicants for each job.  There may be throngs of applicants for every job posting, since job seekers apply for multiple jobs. The 5-to-1 ratio means that there is literally only one job opening for every five unemployed workers (that is, for every four out of five unemployed workers there simply are no jobs).
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The ratio is significantly improved from its peak last November of 6.2-to-1, but there remains a severe shortage of jobs. The ratio of unemployed per job opening is still far higher than at the worst point in the last recession, when its maximum was 2.8 unemployed workers per job opening. In 2007, before the recession started, the ratio averaged 1.5-to-1.