WASHINGTON — Companies planning to ramp up hiring this year will have an added luxury: their choice from a flood of applicants, without having to pay a premium for top talent.

Unemployment remains near double digits, and there are nearly five unemployed workers competing for each available job. That is giving employers more confidence, while at the same time enabling them to keep wages low.

The lack of opportunities over the past three years means it’s risky for jobseekers to be choosy. All that leaves hiring managers with little incentive to negotiate.

“They don’t have to pay higher wages to get who they want,” Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

Employers advertised 3.25 million jobs in November, the Labor Department said Tuesday. That’s 39 percent higher than the number of jobs advertised in July 2009, a month after the recession ended. But it’s still far below the 4.4 million openings posted in December 2007, when the downturn began.

Perhaps more important is the number of people vying for those jobs. With 15 million unemployed in November, the ratio was 4.6 unemployed workers for every open job. The ratio reached 6.3 in November 2009, the highest since the department began tracking job openings in December 2000. Still, in a healthy economy, it would fall to between 1.5 and 2, economists say.

While openings are up 39 percent from the low point during the recession, monthly hiring has risen only 4 percent to 4.2 million in the same period.

Economists don’t agree on the reasons for the gap. Some say the unemployed lack the right skills for the available jobs. Others cite the housing slump, which makes it harder for those out of work to sell their homes and relocate to take a job.

Wages and salaries rose only 1.5 percent in the 12 months ending last September, according to the latest government figures. That’s barely ahead of the 1.1 percent rise in inflation over the same period.

The good news for jobseekers is that economists expect a lot more openings in the months ahead. Some are projecting more than double the 1.1 million jobs added in 2010.