Online Advertised Vacancies Post First Annual Decline in March

NEW YORK, March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- In March 2008, there were 3,733,200 online advertised job vacancies, a 0.6 percent decline from the March 2007 level, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series(TM) released today. The March'07 to March'08 decline is the first over-the-year decline and reflects a slowing in annual growth in 42 states, of which 14 states were negative. In March, there were 2.4 advertised vacancies posted online for every 100 persons in the labor force, down from a high of 2.9 in April 2007.

"The softening in advertised vacancies evident over the last few months spread to more states in March and, for the first time, annual growth turned negative for the nation as a whole," said Gad Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board. "It would not be surprising to see a third straight month of job losses when employment data are released later this week as well as continued weakness in the months ahead. The weak demand for labor and a soft employment market help explain the significant decline in the Consumer Confidence Index released last week, which dropped to 64.5, its lowest level since 2003," explained Levanon.

    THE NATIONAL - REGIONAL PICTURE

    --  2,542,500 new online ads posted in March.
    --  The New England, South Atlantic and Pacific Regions show a decline in
        annual labor demand.

In March, 2,542,500 of the 3,733,200 unduplicated online advertised vacancies were new ads that did not appear in February, while the remainders are reposted ads from the previous month. In March, the number of total online advertised vacancies declined 5 percent and new ads dropped 8 percent from February, reflecting the fact that there were fewer days during the reference period, as well as the continued slowing in the labor market. Year-over-year (March'07 - March'08) growth rates of total ads fell 0.6 percent while new ads were up 2 percent, respectively.

The monthly national decrease in advertised vacancies between February and March '08 reflected deterioration in ads in all nine Census regions. However, the year-over-year (March '07 - March '08) growth rates in six of the nine Census regions continued to show a gain in labor demand, albeit the growth rate was slower than the previous year. Three exceptions to this were the New England, South Atlantic and Pacific regions which declined by 1 percent, 4 percent and 14 percent, respectively.

    STATE HIGHLIGHTS

    --  Alaska posts the highest ads rate in the country for the seventh month
        in a row.
    --  Maryland leads the nation with the lowest supply/demand rate.

The number of advertised vacancies declined from March 2007 to March 2008 in 14 states (up from 12 states in February 2008). Almost all the states (42) experienced a slowing in the year-over-year growth rate. Most of these same states also experienced a slowing in their year-over-year growth rate of employment during the last year. Based on the decline in advertised vacancies, employment growth will likely continue to decline in the months ahead.

States where labor demand continues to be high include Alaska, Nevada and Delaware. Alaska posted 4.65 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 seven months in a row. Nevada (4.38) and Delaware (4.26) 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 and Nevada include Arizona (4.17), Colorado (4.04) and Washington (3.73). The other half of the top ten are along the Eastern seaboard.

Online advertised vacancies in California, the state with the largest labor force in the nation, totaled 512,000 in March. The ad volume in California dropped 118,000 or 19 percent below the March 2007 level. The volume of online advertised vacancies in Florida (217,100) was 15 percent below the March '07 level while the volume in Texas (336,900) was up 8 percent and ads in New York (275,800) were up slightly (1.4 percent).

"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) and computing the supply/demand ratio (unemployed/advertised vacancies), the states with the most favorable (e.g., lowest) supply/demand rates included Maryland (0.90), Arizona (0.95), Delaware (0.98) and Utah (0.99). This month, there were four states with a supply/demand rate less than 1.0. This is up from last month, when three states had a supply/demand rate less than 1.0, yet it is still lower than 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 February was 2.45, 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 Arkansas (3.07), Indiana (3.20), Kentucky (3.60), Michigan (4.59) and Mississippi (4.86).

    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 (260,400) and Management (228,900) are the two occupations with the most number of ads posted online. According to the latest federal hourly wage data, wages average about $30 for healthcare practitioners and above $44 an hour for management. Also in high demand are occupations in computer and mathematical (203,900), business and financial operations (197,400) and office and administrative support (194,400).

    METRO AREA HIGHLIGHTS

    --  Metro areas see further weakening with only three out of the largest
        metro areas reporting more advertised vacancies than unemployed
        persons.

The deterioration in the job market in some of the nation's largest metro area is reflected by fewer metro areas posting a supply/demand rate that is less than one. Since July 2007, the number of metro areas with a supply/demand rate of less than one has fallen from 23 areas to only three areas. Among the large metro areas for which data is reported separately, Salt Lake City, Austin, and Washington, D.C. were the only three where the number of advertised vacancies are plentiful in relation to the number of unemployed (i.e. supply/demand rate <1).

The top metro areas in March as measured by most advertised vacancies per 100 persons in the local labor force included Austin (5.75), Milwaukee (5.62), San Jose (5.44), San Francisco (5.14) and Washington D.C. (4.87).

Note: The Help Wanted Online Data Series(TM) 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.

             Publication Schedule, Help Wanted Online Data Series

                 Data for the Month              Release Date

                 April, 2008                     April 30, 2008*
                 May, 2008                       June 2, 2008
                 June, 2008                      June 30, 2008
                 July, 2008                      July 30, 2008*
                 August, 2008                    September 3, 2008*
                 September, 2008                 October 1, 2008*
                 October, 2008                   November 3, 2008
                 November, 2008                  December 3, 2008*
                 December, 2008                  January 7, 2009*


    * Wednesday release due to holidays or data availability.


                                 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, 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 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: www.wantedtech.com.