Newswise — In August there were 4,104,800 online advertised vacancies, an increase of 20,600 or 0.5 percent from the July level, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Seriesâ„¢ (HWOL) released today. Online advertised vacancies were up (12%) over the year (August'06-August'07). There were 2.65 advertised vacancies online for every 100 persons in the labor force in August.
"The August numbers point to a continued softening in labor demand," said Gad Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board. "August is typically a month when businesses step up hiring. Although this online data series does not have enough history to seasonally adjust the monthly data, online job demand was virtually unchanged in August which is below what one would expect. While there are occupations and industries, like healthcare, where demand for labor remains high, August was a month when The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index also indicated that Americans were feeling the softening of general business conditions and the labor market."
THE NATIONAL PICTURE
In August, 2,780,400 of the 4,104,800 unduplicated online advertised vacancies were new ads that did not appear in July, while the remainder were reposted ads from the previous month. The 0.5 percent monthly increase in total ads reflected a 6 percent increase in new ads that offset the decline in reposted ads. Over the year (August'06 " August'07) total ads and new ads rose 12 percent and 14 percent, respectively.
Online job demand in August continued to be above last year's level in eight of the nine Census regions, but there were substantial variations from region to region. The largest over the year increases were in the West South Central region, which includes Louisiana, Texas and Oklahoma (32%), followed by the Mountain and East North Central regions (both up 24%). The Pacific and South Atlantic regions posted more modest gains (5% and 7%, respectively) while the New England region was down 6 percent from year ago levels. The New England region, however, continues to have one of the highest ads rate (3.58 ads per 100 persons in the regional labor force) exceeded only by the Mountain region (3.7 ads per 100 labor force).
The August figures reported in the Help-Wanted OnLine Data Seriesâ„¢ reflect the sum of the number of unduplicated online job ads for each day from mid-July to mid-August. This new series, which includes data from April 2005, does not have sufficient history to allow for seasonally adjusted monthly data. STATE HIGHLIGHTS* Nevada posts the highest ads rate in the country in August.* Montana leads the nation with the lowest supply/demand rate for the fourth month in a row.
Nevada posted 4.56 vacancies for every 100 persons in the state labor force, the highest rate in the nation moving up from second place last month. Alaska (4.46) and Montana (4.39) were close behind in the number of advertised vacancies when adjusted for the size of the state labor force. Other states in the top five included Oregon (4.33) and Colorado (4.3).
Online advertised vacancies in California, the state with the largest labor force in the nation, totaled 647,100 in August. The volume of online advertised vacancies in California was significantly above the next highest states, Texas (347,500), New York (284,200) and Florida (241,900).
"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 Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and computing the supply/demand ratio (unemployed/advertised vacancies), the states with the most favorable (e.g., lowest) supply/demand rates included Montana (0.49), Idaho (0.65), Wyoming (0.77), and Utah (0.78). There were 9 states where the supply/demand rate was less than 1.0, indicating that the number of unemployed workers was fewer than the number of online job ads. For the nation as a whole the comparable supply/demand rate was 1.85 with the number of unemployed persons exceeding the number of online advertised vacancies.
States where the number of unemployed persons looking for work significantly exceeded the number of online advertised demand included Mississippi (5.13) and Michigan (4.76), Arkansas (3.40) and Kentucky (3.29). OCCUPATIONAL FOCUS
* Over 336,200 ads posted for healthcare practitioners and technical occupations in August.* Management and Business/Financial occupations account for more than 30% of online ads in New York and Illinois.
Healthcare practitioners and technical workers (336,200) and management positions (312,700) continue to be top occupations with a significant number of ads posted online. "These are also, on average, among the highest paying occupations," said Levanon. According to the latest federal hourly wage data, wages average above $44 an hour for management positions and about $30 an hour for healthcare practitioners and technicians.
Also in high demand are office and administrative support (271,500), business and financial occupations (261,900), and computer and mathematical (259,400) occupations.
AUSTIN, TX IN THE LEAD FOR THE FIRST TIME THIS YEAR
* Austin ranks first with 6.26 ads per 100 persons in the labor force.* Salt Lake City has the lowest supply/demand ratio in the nation.
The top metro areas in August with over 6 advertised vacancies per 100 persons in the local labor force included Austin (6.26), San Francisco (6.11) and San Jose (6.10). These same metro areas are also among the top ten areas in the country where the number of unemployed persons was below the number of online advertised vacancies (supply/demand rate). Salt Lake City was number one with a 0.50 supply/demand rate. The number of unemployed persons looking for work was fewer than the number of advertised vacancies in 9 of the 52 metro areas for which data is reported separately.
Two of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, New York and Los Angeles, were first and second in the absolute volume of advertised job vacancies in August, with 291,600 and 235,100, respectively.
Note: The Help Wanted Online Data Seriesâ„¢ 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 Seriesâ„¢ 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 Seriesâ„¢ 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. CareerBuilder.com provides financial support for the series.
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 BoardNon-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.
CareerBuilder.comCareerBuilder.com is the nation's largest online job site with more than 20 million unique visitors and over 1 million jobs. The company offers a vast online and print network to help job seekers connect with employers. CareerBuilder.com powers the career centers for more than 550 partners that include 165 newspapers and leading portals such as MSN and America Online. For more information about CareerBuilder.com products and services, visit http://www.careerbuilder.com.
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.
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