Newswise — Total online job ads were 3,754,400 in March, a dip of 69,800 or 2 percent from February, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Seriesâ„¢ released today, reflecting the shorter reference period of mid-February to mid-March, when there were three fewer days than in the previous month. There were 2.5 advertised vacancies online for every 100 persons in the labor force in March. Over the year March '06 — March '07, online advertised vacancies increased 18 percent for the nation as a whole.
"All in all, the labor market is holding remarkably steady," said Gad Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board. "The March dip in advertised vacancies is entirely due to fewer days in the February-March reference period." Growth in the number of online job ads over the year continues to be in the double digits. "I would expect that the federal employment numbers scheduled for release later this week will show the same reasonable, but not spectacular, gains we've seen over the last few months," Levanon indicated.
THE NATIONAL PICTURE The 3,754,400 unduplicated online advertised vacancies in March include 2,492,300 new ads that did not appear in February, as well as reposted ads from the previous months. During March, total ads decreased 2 percent and new ads were down 3 percent from the previous month. Over the year (March'06 " March'07) total ads and new ads rose 18 percent and 24 percent, respectively. Monthly percent change declines were reflective of a shorter reference period with three fewer days than the previous month. The March 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-February to mid-March. This new series, which includes data from April 2005, does not have sufficient history to allow for seasonally adjusted monthly data.
The fastest year-over-year growth was in the mid-section of the country with the West South Central and West North Central regions up 33 percent and 31 percent, respectively. Across the nation, states with the largest over-the-year gains in advertised vacancies were Maine (+66 percent), Arkansas (+57 percent), North Dakota (+49 percent), and Missouri (+39 percent).
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 " Austin (+63 percent) and Houston (+54 percent).
STATE HIGHLIGHTS
* Massachusetts posts the highest ads rate for the fourth consecutive month. * Wyoming ranks first as the state with the lowest supply/demand rate this month.
Online advertised vacancies in California, the state with the largest labor force in the nation, totaled 629,700 in March. The volume of online advertised vacancies in California was significantly above the next highest states, Texas (312,600), New York (272,100), Florida (255,700) and Illinois (176,500).
Massachusetts, with 146,500 advertised vacancies in March, posted 4.32 vacancies for every 100 persons in the state labor force, the highest rate in the nation for the fourth consecutive month. Nevada (4.26) and Alaska (4.11) 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 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 with the lowest supply/demand rates where the number of advertised vacancies is in line with the number of unemployed persons included Wyoming (0.85), Hawaii (0.88), Utah (0.88), and Virginia (0.89).
States where the number of unemployed persons looking for work significantly exceeded the number of online advertised demand included Mississippi (5.4), Michigan (4.8), and Kentucky (4.1).
OCCUPATIONAL FOCUS
* Over 394,800 ads posted for Management occupations this month. * Management and Business/Financial occupations account for more than 1/3 of online ads in some regions.
In March, the occupations with the most advertised online vacancies nationally were Management (394,800) and Business and Financial Operations (316,500). "These are also, on average, among the highest paying occupations," said Levanon.
"Diving below the broad occupational classifications, some metro areas are hot places to look for certain kinds of jobs," said Levanon. Fully 14 percent of all of the online ads in the New York Metro area are for financial specialists, and are a higher percent of ads than in any of the other 52 large metro areas covered in this release. Washington, D.C. leads the way for computer specialists, with 18 percent of all the D.C. online ads in this occupational category. Looking at online ads in San Jose, the largest number (18 percent) are for engineers.
WASHINGTON D.C. STILL IN THE LEAD
* Washington D.C. has the lowest supply/demand ratio in the nation and is ranked third in total ad volume behind New York and Los Angeles. * San Jose ranks first with 6.28 ads per 100 persons in the labor force.
The 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 D.C., Salt Lake City, San Jose, San Francisco, and Austin.
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 March, with 281,800 and 235,800, respectively. The top two metro areas in terms of advertised vacancies per 100 persons in the local labor force were San Jose (6.28) and San Francisco (5.97), followed by Austin (5.48), and Washington D.C. (5.02).
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: http://www.wantedtech.com.
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