The chart above shows monthly payroll employment and monthly online help wanted ads from May 2005 to July 2010. Since the April 2009 low of 3,188,800 total online help wanted ads, there has been an increase of 1.105 million help wanted ads to 4.29 million in July. From the December 2009 bottom of 129.58 million jobs there has been an increase of only 654,000 payroll jobs, for a ratio of 1.7 new jobs advertised and available for every one new job added to U.S. payrolls. And the last time there were 4.29 million online help wanted ads in November 2008, there were 135 million payroll jobs. So perhaps there’s a long lag between when online help wanted ads appear and when those jobs are actually filled, in which case we can expect almost 5 million jobs to be filled based on the number of jobs advertised. Or maybe the “U.S. could end up with a permanent caste of long-term unemployed, like those that weigh on government budgets in some European countries,” as mentioned in today’s Wall Street Journal?
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