Jobs Just Are Not There

It’s hard to believe, but the jobs picture has actually improved over the past year: In June, there were five job seekers for every job.

Sure, that sounds pretty terrible, and it is. But, as mentioned, the number released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning was a little better in June than it had been in May, and quite a bit better than it was last November. But there are no guarantees, with a slowing economic recovery and small businesses increasingly skeptical, that the number will get significantly better anytime soon.

And the markets were responding today as if they don't expect good economic news in the near future, either. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 63.90 points, or 2.48 percent, to end at 10,380.35. The Nasdaq fell 68.54 points, or 3.01 percent, to finish at 2,208.63, and the S&P 500 was off 31.45 points, or 2.81 percent, to close at 1,089.61. All three major indexes were trading in negative territory for the year.

That's just one negative, though, and it's hard to see much positive in the latest reports, especially for small businesses and the workers who depend on them to create jobs.

A total of 2.9 million jobs were open in June, when there were 14.9 million unemployed Americans. That works out to 5-1, according to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute. In May, the ratio was 5.1-1. Last November, the number was 6.2-1.

Of course, that 5-1 ratio doesn't necessarily reflect how many competitors there are for every open job. The unemployed--or those just looking for a different job than the one they have--could be applying for multiple jobs. So that could mean hundreds of applicants for any given open job.

Any way you look at it, the employment picture is worse, even during this slow recovery phase from the Great Recession, than it was during the worst of the recession of the early 2000s. At its worst during that recession, the ratio was 2.8 workers to every job.

But, wait, it gets even gloomier. Remember the early 1980s and the double-dip recession of those dismal days? Well, the gloom of the jobs picture now eclipses that period.

In June, 45.5 percent of jobless workers had been unemployed for six months or more, by far grimmer than the worst of previous postwar recessions in the summer of 1983, when 26 percent of workers had been out of a job for that long.

But surely things must be getting better just around the corner, right? Well, probably not.

The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that the pace of economic recovery has slowed and that it will start buying Treasury debt in an effort to push down long-term interest rates and support growth.

American exports, a cornerstone of the Obama administration’s program to get the country back on the right economic track, faltered in June, according to a report released today. Exports fell 1.3 percent to $150.5 billion, while imports rose to $200.3 billion. The trade deficit jumped 18.8 percent.

That’s a blow to President Barack Obama’s goal of getting Americans back to work by selling our goods and services to the world. He wants to double exports in the next five years.

The unemployment rate stands at 9.5 percent, but it would be worse if 400,000 Americans hadn’t given up looking for jobs.

Worker productivity has actually dropped for the first time since the last quarter of 2008, meaning businesses aren't doing more with less, they're just doing less.

And small businesses, the engine that has driven job growth in the United States for decades, are getting gloomier. A National Federation of Independent Business survey released Tuesday shows small-business optimism had declined for the second month in a row and is down for the year after brief spikes of improvement in the spring.

Even worse when you’re talking about jobs, the NFIB report shows small-business leaders aren’t in the mood to do much hiring. In fact, slightly more business owners are talking about cutting staff than adding to it. And little wonder, since incomes have dropped in most of America's biggest cities, leaving consumers in no mood to spend.

So don’t be too surprised if you see the number of workers lined up for every job climb even higher.

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Kent Bernhard Jr. is News Editor of Portfolio.com