South By North Strategies, Ltd.

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

The total number of job openings in March was 3.1 million. The total number of unemployed workers was 13.5 million (unemployment is from the Current Population Survey). The ratio of unemployed workers to job openings was thus 4.3-to-1 in March, an improvement from the revised February ratio of 4.5-to-1. However, March marks two years and three months that the “job seeker’s ratio” has been substantially above 4-to-1. A job seeker’s ratio of 4-to-1 means that for three out of four unemployed workers, there simply are no jobs. The highest this ratio ever got in the early 2000s downturn was 2.8-to-1 in the middle of 2003.