Online Advertised Job Vacancies up in September, the Conference Board Reports Today

- Healthcare professional and technical workers remain in high demand

- Ads rates remain high in New England and on the West Coast although rate

of growth slows

- Mountain region ads rates remains high with a growth rate continuing

above the national average

    NEW YORK, Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- In September there were 4,270,000
 online advertised vacancies, an increase of 165,200 or 4 percent from the
 August level, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data
 Series(TM) (HWOL) released today. Online advertised vacancies were up
 (17.5%) over the year (September'06 - September'07). There were 2.78
 advertised vacancies online for every 100 persons in the labor force in
 September.
     "The growth rate in the number of online ads has moderated in recent
 months from what we were seeing in early 2007 and some of the growth is
 reflective of the continued shift to online job advertising," said Gad
 Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board. "Looking regionally, the more
 'mature' areas in terms of internet usage, like the West and East coasts,
 where online job advertising has been popular for some time, the rate of
 growth has slowed. In many of the smaller metro areas, and where online job
 advertising has lagged behind the largest metro areas, the growth rates
 continue to be very strong."
     THE NATIONAL - REGIONAL PICTURE
     In September, 2,934,100 of the 4,270,000 unduplicated online advertised
 vacancies were new ads that did not appear in August, while the remainder
 are reposted ads from the previous month. The 4 percent increase in total
 ads reflected a 6 percent increase in new ads and 1 percent increase in
 reposted ads. Over the year (September'06 - September'07) total ads and new
 ads rose 17.5 percent and 22.6 percent, respectively.
     Online job demand in September 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 New England region, which continues to have one
 of the highest ads rates (3.65 ads per 100 persons in the regional labor
 force) declined for the second month (-5% in September and -6% in August).
 Recent Consumer Confidence readings on the present and future economic and
 employment outlook in this region have also cooled over the last few
 months. The Pacific region, which includes California, Oregon, Washington,
 Hawaii and Alaska, also has a high ads rate (3.62 ads per 100 labor force),
 and was up a modest 8% over the year. The Mountain region, which has the
 highest ads rate in the nation (3.86), was up 29% from September '06 to
 September '07, substantially above the national average. The central
 regions of the country experienced the largest over the year gains with the
 West South Central region leading (up 43%), followed by the East North
 Central region (up 28%), and West North Central region (up 25%). The South
 Atlantic region was up 13%.
     The September figures reported in the Help-Wanted OnLine Data
 Series(TM) reflect the sum of the number of unduplicated online job ads for
 each day from mid-August to mid-September. This new series, which includes
 data from April 2005, does not have sufficient history to allow for
 seasonally adjusted monthly data.
     STATE HIGHLIGHTS
     -- Alaska posts the highest ads rate in the country in September.
     -- Montana leads the nation with the lowest supply/demand rate for the
        fifth month in a row.
     Alaska posted 4.7 vacancies for every 100 persons in the state labor
 force, the highest rate in the nation, moving up from second place last
 month. Nevada (4.64) and Colorado (4.52) 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 (4.41) and Arizona (4.29).
     Online advertised vacancies in California, the state with the largest
 labor force in the nation, totaled 666,000 in September. The volume of
 online advertised vacancies in California was significantly above the next
 highest states, Texas (374,500), New York (289,700) and Florida (247,800).
     "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
 (0.50), Idaho (0.69), Wyoming (0.73), and Delaware (0.75). There were 14
 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 1.73 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 (4.46) and Michigan (4.25), Kentucky (3.23) and Indiana (3.10).
     OCCUPATIONAL FOCUS
     -- Over 334,500 ads posted for healthcare practitioners and technical
        occupations in September.
     -- Management and Business/Financial occupations account for more than 30%
        of online ads in New York and Illinois.
     Healthcare practitioners and technical workers (334,500) and management
 positions (303,400) 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 (268,500),
 business and financial occupations (257,300), and computer and mathematical
 (250,300) occupations.
     AUSTIN, TX METRO AREA LEADS AGAIN
     -- Austin ranks first with 6.75 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 September with around 6 advertised vacancies per
 100 persons in the local labor force included Austin (6.75) and San Jose
 (6.25) and San Francisco (5.98). 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 September, with 297,700 and 241,600, respectively.
     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. 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, www.bls.gov.
     The Conference Board
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 leading business membership and research organization. The Conference Board
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     CareerBuilder.com
     CareerBuilder.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
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 resources specialists. For more information, please visit:
 www.wantedtech.com.
 
 

SOURCE The Conference Board