Job Openings Hit Five-Month Low For April, Everyone Wonders When The Jobs Are Coming Back

Job openings are a hot button topic when it comes to the recession and its enduring effects on the economy, but it seems one of the very few things both right and left can agree on is that we need more jobs, damnit.

Job openings seem, to those with a job, to be easy to find — hey, don’t you see hiring signs all the time, and if that former teacher just stopped being so insistent on a job that pays six figures and provides medical insurance, everyone would have a job even it it is a job they maybe think is beneath them?

But for the chronically unemployed or underemployed, a lack of actually feasible job openings is a constant source of stress. Not only do they have difficulty finding a job that pays even minimum wage in some cases, but the job openings to which everyone seems to be referring are often not as appears. Commission-only jobs, retail jobs with unworkable hours and no health insurance and job openings scams are more plentiful than real, fair terms jobs, so the debate rages on.

And more sour news for both sides — the “get a job, you bum” side as well as the “unemployment is at a record-high, so there are not enough jobs and raining tax cuts and bailouts on CEOs hasn’t helped” side — came today in the form of finally released figures on job openings in recent months via the Labor Department.

Per Bloomberg:

“The level of recruiting intensity saw a bit of a spike in February (see chart), and has gradually crept upward since the economy hit bottom in 2009. But as of April, it still stood 13 percent below its pre-recession average, and 17 percent below its pre-recession peak.”

The site posits, however, that Americans could see more job openings — when companies stop sitting on cash “in case” and begin hiring again.