No Jobs for More than 75% of Unemployed Americans

No Jobs for More than 75% of Unemployed Americans
By Mary Elizabeth Dallas
January 11, 2011

A new report from Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) paints a
grim picture of the U.S. labor market.

The bottom line: no jobs for more than 75% of unemployed
Americans, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy
Institute (EPI).

The discouraging November report from the Job Openings and
Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), shows there were 80,000 fewer
job openings in November, while revisions to earlier data
reveal that October job openings were overstated by 34,000.

Additional signs of weakness: hires declined by 39,000, layoffs
increased by 36,000, and quits decreased by 44,000. The report
underscores the rocky nature of the recovery, according to the EPI.

That’s because the total number of job openings in November was
3.25 million, while the Current Population Survey reveals the total
number of unemployed workers was 15.0 million.

Therefore, the ratio of unemployed workers to job openings was
4.6-to-1 in November - more than three times the 2007 average
of 1.5-to-1, notes the EPI.

Moreover, although the labor market is now adding jobs, the group
points out it remains 7.2 million payroll jobs below where it was at
the start of the recession three years ago.

The EPI argues even this number discounts the fact that simply
keeping up with the growth in the working-age population would
require the addition of another 3.7 million jobs in those three years.

Translation: the labor market is now about 11 million jobs below
the level needed to restore the pre-recession unemployment rate
(5.0% in December 2007).

“So, despite the job growth of 2010, we remain near the bottom
of a very large hole,” concludes the EPI.

To achieve the pre-recession unemployment rate by 2016 would
require the addition of about 300,000 jobs every month for the
entire five years.

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