job market

JOLTS - There were 3.4 People Looking for a Job for each Position Available in September 2012

The BLS September JOLTS report, or Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey shows there are 3.4* official unemployed per job opening. Opportunities, actual hires and layoffs were all down, showing a stagnant, dead pool job market. While openings decreased by -2.7%, actual hires declined by -5.7%.

Job JOLTS - There were 3.4 Unemployed People per Job Opening for June 2012

The BLS JOLTS, or Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey reports the never ceasing abysmal jobs market. The June 2012 statistics show there were 3.39 official unemployed persons for every position available*. There were 3,762,000 job openings for June 2012, a 2.87% increase from the previous month of 3,657,000. Openings are still way below pre-recession levels of 4.7 million. Job openings have increased 72% from their July 2009 trough, yet opportunities are miles away from the 1.8 persons per job opening ratio at the start of the recession, December 2007. There are some in the press who focus on levels, to make the job market seem better than it is. Not so, it's still horrific. Below is the graph of June official unemployed, 12.749 million, per job opening.

 

job openings per official unemployed