New York, NY, December 29, 2006--The Conference Board Help-Wanted Advertising Index--a key measure of job offerings in major newspapers across America--was unchanged in November. The Index now stands at 30. It was 38 one year ago.
The Conference Board is the global business research and membership organization.
In the last three months, help-wanted advertising declined in five of the nine U.S. regions. Steepest declines occurred in the South Atlantic (-13.9%), New England (-7.6%) and Mountain (-4.6%) regions.
Says Ken Goldstein, labor economist at The Conference Board: "The labor market has little momentum going into the new year. The latest data shows that job advertising in print was unchanged in November. The rise in ad volume online also remains slow but relatively unchanged over the recent period. Job growth is considerably slower going into 2007--now less than 125,000 new jobs a month. These forward indicators of labor activity suggest it might not get any stronger over the next few months."
Total online job ads declined by 119,800 or 3 percent to 3,711,300 in November, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series. There were 2.4 advertised vacancies online for every 100 persons in the labor force in November.
The Conference Board surveys help-wanted print advertising volume in 51 major newspapers across the country every month. Because ad volume has proven to be sensitive to labor market conditions, this measure provides a gauge of change in the local, regional and national supply of jobs.
