Online Advertised Vacancies Showed Continued Weakness in May, Says The Conference Board
Posted on June 2, 2008
Filed Under Internet
Online advertised vacancies dropped 579,000 from May 2007 to May 2008. Demand for employees fell in all areas of the country.
NEW YORK, June 2 /PRNewswire/ — In May 2008, there were 3,795,400
online advertised job vacancies, a decline of 579,000 or 13.2 percent from
the May 2007 level, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine
Data Series(TM) (HWOL) released today. This is the third consecutive month
of declines for the nation as a whole (year-over-year). In May, there were
2.5 advertised vacancies posted online for every 100 persons in the labor
force, down from a high of 2.9 in May 2007.
“May shows a slight recovery from the large April decline, but overall
the number of online advertised vacancies has been on a downward trend for
the past several months. The demand for labor will likely be sluggish this
summer,” said Gad Levanon, economist at The Conference Board. “This
lackluster job outlook is clearly a contributing factor in consumer
confidence shrinking to its lowest point in nearly two decades, as reported
by The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey.”
THE NATIONAL - REGIONAL PICTURE
— 2,743,700 new online ads posted in May
— All nine Census Regions post over-the-year declines in labor demand
In May, 2,743,700 of the 3,795,400 unduplicated online advertised
vacancies were new ads that did not appear in April, while the remainder
are reposted ads from the previous month. In May, a month expected to show
a seasonal increase in labor demand, the number of total online advertised
vacancies increased by 145,500 or 4 percent while new ads rose by 152,200
or 6 percent from April. However, the vulnerable labor demand is clear in
the May year-over-year numbers where total ads fell 13.2 percent and new
ads fell 2.5 percent.
The monthly national increase in advertised vacancies between April and
May ‘08 reflected marginal increases in ads in all nine Census regions.
However, online advertised vacancies in each of the nine Census regions
were below last year’s May levels.
STATE HIGHLIGHTS
— Alaska posts the highest ads rate in the country for the ninth month
in a row
— Wyoming leads the nation with the lowest supply/demand rate
The number of advertised vacancies declined from May 2007 to May 2008
in 43 states (compared to 44 states in April 2008), and all the states
experienced a slowing in the year-over-year growth rate. The April
employment data released by the BLS indicates that 43 of the 50 states also
experienced a slowing in their year-over-year growth rate of employment.
States where job seekers are continuing to see a large number of
advertised vacancies include Alaska, Nevada and Colorado. Alaska posted
4.98 online advertised vacancies for every 100 persons in the state labor
force, the highest rate in the nation. Alaska has held the number one
position for nine months in a row. Nevada (4.17) and Colorado (4.14) were
close behind in the number of advertised vacancies when adjusted for the
size of the state labor force. Half of the top 10 states with the highest
ads rate are west of the Mississippi and in addition to Alaska, Nevada and
Colorado, include Arizona (3.74) and Washington (3.57). The remaining
states were on the East Coast and include Delaware (3.90), Massachusetts
(3.89), Maryland (3.77), Vermont (3.75) and Connecticut (3.55).
Online advertised vacancies in California, the state with the largest
labor force in the nation, totaled 505,700 in May. The ad volume in
California dropped by nearly 200,000 ads, 28 percent below the May 2007
level. The volume of online advertised vacancies in Texas (319,600) was
down 13 percent and ads in New York (264,800) were down 16 percent from
year ago levels.
“Although one cannot infer that the occupation or geographic location
of unemployed persons matches the occupation or geographic location of the
vacancies, looking at the number of unemployed in relation to the number of
advertised vacancies provides an indication of available job opportunities
for the unemployed,” said Levanon. Using the latest unemployment data
available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (April data) and
computing the supply/demand ratio (unemployed/advertised vacancies), the
states with the most favorable (e.g., lowest) supply/demand rates included
Wyoming (0.85), Maryland (0.94), Delaware (0.95), Massachusetts (0.99) and
Utah (0.99). One bright spot this month was the improvement in the
supply/demand rate; there were five states where the number of advertised
vacancies exceeded the number of unemployed (e.g., a supply/demand rate
less than 1.0). This is an improvement from last month when only two states
had a supply/demand rate less than 1.0, yet still below the peak of 11
states with a supply/demand rate less than 1.0 in July 2007. For the nation
as a whole, the comparable supply/demand rate for April was 2.0, indicating
that for every two unemployed people looking for work there was only one
online advertised vacancy.
States where the number of unemployed persons looking for work
significantly exceeded the number of online advertised vacancies included
Tennessee (2.68), Indiana (2.87), Kentucky (3.29), Michigan (4.04), and
Mississippi (4.67).
OCCUPATIONAL FOCUS
— Healthcare - Still Leads Occupations in Highest Demand
“Many jobs in high demand are also, on average, among the highest
paying occupations,” said Levanon. Healthcare practitioners (219,000) and
Management (191,200) are the two occupations with the most number of ads
posted online. According to the latest federal hourly wage data, wages
average about $31 for healthcare practitioners and $46 an hour for
management. Also in high demand are occupations in computer and
mathematical (183,000), business and financial operations (170,200) and
office and administrative support (169,000).
METRO AREAS HIGHLIGHTS
— Among Top 52 Metro Areas, Only 7 Areas Post Over the Year Gains
In May, 45 of the 52 metro areas for which data is reported separately
posted a smaller number of advertised vacancies than last year. The
deterioration in the job market in some of the nation’s largest metro areas
is further reflected in comparing the number of unemployed to the number of
advertised vacancies. Since July 2007, the number of metro areas with a
supply/demand rate of less than one has fallen from 23 areas to 11 areas.
The top metro areas in April as measured by most advertised vacancies
per 100 persons in the local labor force included Austin (5.77), Milwaukee
(5.57), Denver (4.93), San Jose (4.87), and San Francisco (4.84).
PROGRAM NOTES
The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series(TM) measures the
number of new, first-time online jobs and jobs reposted from the previous
month on more than 1,200 major Internet job boards and smaller job boards
that serve niche markets and smaller geographic areas.
Like The Conference Board’s long running Help-Wanted Advertising Index
of print ads (which has been published since 1951), the new online series
is not a direct measure of job vacancies. The level of ads in both print
and online may change for reasons not related to overall job demand.
The Conference Board, as a standard practice with new data series,
considers the estimates in The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data
Series(TM) to be developmental. As a not-for-profit business research
organization, The Conference Board is publishing the early years of this
series for use by the media, analysts, researchers and the business
community. Persons using this data are urged to review the information on
the database and methodology available on our website and contact the
economists listed at the top of this release with questions and comments.
Background information and technical notes on this new series are
available at:
http://www.conference-board.org/economics/helpwantedOnline.cfm. The
underlying data for this series is provided by WANTED Technologies
Corporation.
Additional information on the Bureau of Labor Statistics data used in
this release can be found on the BLS website, http://www.bls.gov.
The Conference Board
Non-partisan and not-for-profit, The Conference Board is the world’s
leading business membership and research organization. The Conference Board
produces The Consumer Confidence Index and the Leading Economic Indicators
for the U.S. and other major nations. These barometers can have a major
impact on the financial markets. The Conference Board also produces a wide
range of authoritative reports on corporate governance and ethics, human
resources and diversity, executive compensation and corporate citizenship.
Our conference and council programs bring together more than 10,000 senior
executives each year to share insights and learn from each other. Visit The
Conference Board’s award-winning website at http://www.conference-board.org.
WANTED Technologies Corporation
WANTED is a leading supplier of real-time sales and business
intelligence solutions for the media classified and recruitment industries.
Using its proprietary On-Demand data mining, lead generation and CRM
(Customer Relationship Management) integrated technologies, WANTED
aggregates real-time data from thousands of online job boards, real estate
and newspaper sites, as well as corporate Web sites on a daily basis.
WANTED’s data is used to optimize sales and to implement marketing
strategies within the classified ad departments of major media
organizations, as well as by staffing firms, advertising agencies and human
resources specialists. For more information, please visit:
http://www.wantedtech.com.
The Conference Board
http://www.conference-board.org
http://www.wantedtech.com
http://www.bls.gov
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