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Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series

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THESE DATA ARE FOR ANALYSIS PURPOSES ONLY. NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION, PUBLISHING, DATABASING, OR PUBLIC POSTING WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION.

Continued Weakness in Online Advertised Job Vacancies In June, Says The Conference Board

June 30, 2008

Download a PDF of the press release (which includes a breakdown of the number of new online help wanted ads) and the technical notes.

Download the National Historical Table.

Continued Weakness in Online Advertised Job Vacancies In June, Says The Conference Board

In June 2008, there were 3,800,600 online advertised job vacancies, virtually unchanged from May, and 480,000 or 11.2 percent below the June 2007 level, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series™ (HWOL) released today. This is the fourth consecutive month of year-over-year declines for the nation as a whole. In June, 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.

"Employment declines are likely to continue through the summer," said Gad Levanon, Senior Economist at The Conference Board. "Spring is typically a time of seasonal increases in labor demand, but not this year. The number of online job ads held steady in June, but considering the declines in advertised vacancies for all of 2008, there is little evidence of any rise in labor demand. The volume of job advertising typically leads the employment numbers, and if there is any good news, it is that job losses are not likely to intensify in the months ahead. But I do not think we have reached the bottom."

THE NATIONAL — REGIONAL PICTURE

In June, 2,752,900 of the 3,800,600 unduplicated online advertised vacancies were new ads that did not appear in May, while the rest are reposted ads from the previous month. In June, a month expected to show a seasonal increase in labor demand, the number of total online advertised vacancies was virtually unchanged (up 5,200 or 0.1 percent) while new ads rose by 9,200 or 0.3 percent from May. However, the delicate labor market is clear in the June year-over-year numbers for labor demand where total ads fell 11.2 percent and new ads rose slightly by 0.3 percent.

The monthly national increase in advertised vacancies between May and June '08 reflected marginal increases in ads in four of the nine Census regions (New England, East South Central, West South Central and Pacific). However, online advertised vacancies in all nine Census regions were below last year's June levels.

STATE HIGHLIGHTS

The number of advertised vacancies declined from June 2007 to June 2008 in 38 states (compared to 43 states in May 2008). The May employment data released by the BLS indicates that 35 of the 50 states also experienced a slowing in their year-over-year growth rate of employment. This is a slight improvement from April when 43 of the 50 states 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, Colorado, and Nevada. Alaska posted 4.93 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 ten months in a row. Colorado (4.18) and Nevada (4.05) 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 on the East Coast and include Massachusetts (3.95), Delaware (3.84), Vermont (3.73), Rhode Island (3.64), and Maryland (3.63). The remaining states were west of the Mississippi and in addition to Alaska, Colorado and Nevada include Washington (3.72), and Arizona (3.60).

Online advertised vacancies in California, the state with the largest labor force in the nation, totaled 503,800 in June. The ad volume in California dropped by over 200,000 ads, 29 percent below the June 2007 level. The volume of online advertised vacancies in Texas (330,100) was down 9 percent and ads in New York (262,400) were down 13 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) (May data) and computing the supply/demand ratio (unemployed/advertised vacancies), the states with the most favorable (e.g., lowest) supply/demand rates included Wyoming (0.88), North Dakota (0.94), Utah (0.96), Delaware (0.97), and Nebraska (0.99). In May 2008, five states had a supply/demand rate less than 1.0. This is 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 May 2008 was 2.1, 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 Indiana (3.0), Tennessee (3.0), Kentucky (3.4), Michigan (4.7), and Mississippi (5.7).

OCCUPATIONAL FOCUS

"Many jobs in high demand are also, on average, among the highest paying occupations," said Levanon. Healthcare practitioners (228,800) and Management (192,100) 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 (181,800), business and financial operations (170,600) and office and administrative support (164,300).

METRO AREA HIGHLIGHTS

In June, 43 of the 52 metro areas for which data is reported separately posted a smaller number of advertised vacancies than last year. This is a slight improvement from last month when 45 of the 52 metro areas 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 June as measured by most advertised vacancies per 100 persons in the local labor force included Austin (5.87), Milwaukee (5.64), San Jose (5.01), Denver (5.01), and San Francisco (4.85).

Note: The Help Wanted Online Data Series™ is a new developmental program with research and evaluation studies ongoing in a number of areas. The comparisons in the attached tables between total ads and total unemployed at the various geographic levels are overall counts and it cannot be inferred that the detailed occupation or geographic location of the unemployed matches the occupation or geographic location of the vacancy. Additionally, there may be differences in the way the unemployed person describes his occupation versus the way an employer may describe the same job. The Conference Board welcomes interested user feedback on this important new data set but also urges users to exercise caution in the analysis and interpretation of the data.

PROGRAM NOTES

The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series™ 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™ 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 here 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, www.bls.gov.

THE CONFERENCE BOARD

More information about The Conference Board.

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: www.wantedtech.com.

For further information contact:
Gad Levanon
1 212 339 0317
gad.levanon@conference-board.org

Frank Tortorici
(1) 212 339 0231
f.tortorici@conference-board.org

June Shelp
1 212 339 0369
june.shelp@conference-board.org

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