The BLS JOLTS, or Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey reports a dismal and pathetic jobs market. The April 2012 statistics show there were 3.66 official unemployed persons for every position available*. There were 3,416,000 job openings for April 2012, a -8.69% change from the previous month of 3,741,000. Openings are still way below pre-recession levels of 4.7 million. Job openings have increased 56% 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. Below is the graph of April official unemployed, 12.5 million, per job opening.
![job openings per official unemployed](https://economicpopulist.org/files/u1/joltsu3_0412.jpg)
If one takes the official broader definition of unemployment, or U-6, the ratio becomes 6.65** unemployed people per each job opening for February. The April U-6 unemployment rate was 14.5%. Below is the graph of number of unemployed, using the broader U-6 unemployment definition, per job opening.
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