South By North Strategies, Ltd.

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

In July there were 3.2 million job openings and 13.9 million unemployed workers (unemployment data are from the Current Population Survey), resulting in a 4.3-to-1 ratio of unemployed workers to job openings. This is an improvement from the revised June ratio of 4.4-to-1. However, July marks two years and seven months—134 weeks—that the “job seeker’s ratio” has been substantially above 4-to-1, a level that means there are no jobs to be found for three out of four unemployed workers. By comparison, in December 2000 the job-seeker’s ratio was 1.1-to-1, and the highest it got in the downturn of the early 2000s was 2.8-to-1. The figure shows that unemployed workers vastly outnumber job seekers in every major industry, reflecting an across-the-board shortfall of demand for workers rather than a structural mismatch between unemployed workers and job openings.