New York, NY, January 26, 2006--The Conference Board Help-Wanted Advertising Index--a key measure of job offerings in major newspapers across America--was unchanged in December.
The Index now stands at 39, the same as in the previous month. It was 40 one year ago.
The Conference Board is a global business research and membership organization.
In the past three months, help-wanted advertising increased in four of the nine U.S. regions. Increases occurred in the East North Central (14.5%), West South Central (13.3%), West North Central (8.3%) and Pacific (0.8%) regions. Largest declines occurred in the East South Central (-4.1%) and South Atlantic (-3.1%) regions.
Says Ken Goldstein, labor economist at The Conference Board: “The latest readings on print want-ad volume suggest that job growth won’t reach the 200,000-a-month pace for at least the next few months. The number of new jobs offered online was no stronger than job offers in major newspapers through the end of December. Also, initial unemployment claims turned flat through December. And latest JOLT data (Job Opening and Labor Turnover) exhibit this same flat trend. If that’s not enough, consumer confidence data about job prospects over the next six months suggest that the economy is not going to build momentum anytime soon.”
Some 1,632,000 new online job ads were offered in December, a decline of 187,000 or 10.3 percent from November, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series. The December level was well below the August 2005 peak of 2,131,000 new online job ads. In December there were 1.09 online job ads per 100 persons in the U.S. labor force, down from 1.21 in November, and 1.34 in October.
