JOLTS stands for Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. The July 2011 statistics show there were 4.32 official unemployed people hunting for a job to every position available. There were only 3,228,000 job openings for July 2011, almost the same, +1.86%, from the previous month of 3,169,000. The change for July is just a slight improvement, bottom line JOLTS again reflects an absolutely horrific jobs market. Below is the graph of number of official unemployed, 13.931 million, per job opening for July 2011.
If one takes the official broader definition of unemployment, or U6, in July at 16.1%, the ratio becomes even worse, 7.78* unemployed people per each job opening for July. Below is the graph of number of unemployed, using the broader U6 unemployment definition, per job opening.
