Newswise — In December there were 3,344,600 online advertised vacancies, a rise of 17 percent from last December, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Seriesâ„¢ released today. While this number is up from last year, it was down by 366,700, or 10 percent from the November level, mostly due to a downward seasonal pattern which began with the Thanksgiving holiday. There were 2.2 advertised vacancies online for every 100 persons in the labor force in December. The monthly decrease in advertised job vacancies was reflected in 49 of the 50 states and was widespread across most major metropolitan areas.
"The period between Thanksgiving and the end of the year is typically slow in terms of hiring, so it's not surprising that we saw a decline in the number of job ads last month," said Gad Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board. "While the economy slowed down in 2006, all in all weaknesses in the labor market have not been widespread. Advertisedvacancies actually grew during the year and unemployment edged lower. Over the year people observed that employment opportunities became more plentiful, according to our Consumer Confidence survey."
The National Picture
The 3,344,600 unduplicated online advertised vacancies in December include 2,101,400 new ads that did not appear in November, as well as reposted ads from the previous month. During December, total ads fell 10 percent and new ads fell 12 percent from the previous month. Over the year (December'05 " December'06) total ads and new ads rose 17 percent and 24 percent, respectively.
While this series does not have a sufficiently long history to allow for seasonal adjustment, the monthly decrease of 366,700 in total ads is consistent with seasonal declines in other labor market indicators, and was widespread across the nation. Monthly percent change declines were greatest in the New England, West North Central, and South Atlantic regions. States with the largest declines were Florida (-35,600), New York (-22,000), Massachusetts (-20,000), Pennsylvania (-17,600) and Minnesota (-7,700). Major metropolitan areas contributing to these declines were Boston (-15,900), New York (-15,200), Washington, D.C. (-12,500), Miami (-11,200), and Philadelphia (-7,000).
North Dakota, the only state to post an increase this month, inched up 300 ads from last month. The two metro areas for which data is reported separately that posted an increase were Virginia Beach (+2,100) and San Jose (+400).
Over the year, the regions with the fastest year over year growth include the West South Central (+37%) and Pacific (+22%) regions. Across the nation, states with the largest over the year gains in advertised vacancies were Oklahoma (+58%), Maine (+50%), Texas (+37%), and New Mexico (+35%). Metropolitan areas with the fastest over the year growth were heavily concentrated in areas where labor markets were disrupted by the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes " Oklahoma City (+93%), Houston (+60%), and Austin, TX (+54%).
STATE HIGHLIGHTS
"¢ California and Texas, the two largest states in the U.S., continue to lead the nation in total ad volume."¢ Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Nevada each posted nearly 4 advertised vacancies for every 100 persons in the labor force. "¢ Virginia, Delaware, and Utah are among the states where advertised job vacancies are greater than the number of unemployed workers.
Online advertised vacancies in California, the state with the largest labor force in the nation, totaled 590,200 in December. The volume of online advertised vacancies in California was significantly above the next highest states, Texas (254,700), New York (249,800), Florida (229,200) and Illinois (160,700).
Massachusetts, with 137,000 advertised vacancies in December, posted 4.04 vacancies for every 100 persons in the state labor force, the highest rate of any state in the nation. Rhode Island (3.92), Nevada (3.87) and Delaware (3.48) were close behind in the number of advertised vacancies when adjusted for the size of the state labor force.
"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 Mr. 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 top states where there was less than one unemployed person looking for work for every ad included Virginia (0.78), Delaware (0.84), Utah (0.84), Wyoming (0.85), South Dakota (0.91), Nevada (0.94), Rhode Island (0.97), and Massachusetts (0.99).
States where the number of unemployed persons looking for work significantly exceeded the level of online advertised demand included Mississippi (5.91), Michigan (4.49), and Kentucky (3.38).
OCCUPATIONAL FOCUS"¢ Managers, the highest paying occupation, accounted for nearly 384,000 online ad postings this month."¢ Computer/Mathematical occupations are the second highest paid in the nation.
In December, the occupations with the most advertised online vacancies nationally were Management (383,900), Business and Financial Operations (296,300), followed by Computer and Mathematical occupations (273,700). "Not only are these jobs in demand, but many of them are high paying jobs," said Mr. Levanon.
Computer/MathematicalIn December there were 273,700 online advertised vacancies for computer/mathematical jobs. "As expected, we find that computer job ads are especially concentrated in the large metro areas," Levanon noted. In terms of the sheer volume of computer/mathematical ads, California (41,600), New York (22,600), and Texas (20,300) were the top states. Metro areas with the largest demand included New York (30,300), Washington, D.C. (21,600), and Los Angeles (14,100).
NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES LEAD MAJOR METRO AREAS"¢ There are nearly two ads for every job seeker in Washington, D.C. "¢ San Jose and San Francisco have the highest number of job ads per 100 in the labor force.
The top 10 metro areas where the number of unemployed persons looking for work was less than the number of advertised vacancies includes a wide range of areas across the nation " Washington, DC, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, Boston, Seattle, Richmond, Austin, and Tampa.
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 December, with 259,500 and 219,900, respectively. The top two metro areas in terms of advertised vacancies per 100 persons in the local labor force were San Jose (6.24) and San Francisco (5.45), followed by Washington, DC (4.92), and Boston (4.49).
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 use caution in the analysis and interpretation of the data.
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