Online Ad Job Vacancies Up in May

New York, NY, May 31, 2007--Total online job ads were 4,374,400 in May, an increase of 9,000 or 0.2 percent from April, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series™ released. Online advertised vacancies continue to be up substantially (29 percent) over the year (May'06 — May'07). There were 2.9 advertised vacancies online for every 100 persons in the labor force in May.

"Although online job ads were virtually unchanged in May, they have expanded rapidly in recent months and continue to run substantially above last year's level," said Gad Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board. "Several factors are at work here. Booming industries like healthcare, and hot occupations like IT and business managers, advertise heavily online while industries like construction and manufacturing that have turned down in the last year have historically made less use of online job advertising. Online job advertising isn't likely to weaken significantly as long as the industries/occupations that recruit heavily online continue to remain strong."

The 4,374,400 unduplicated online advertised vacancies in May include 2,812,900 new ads that did not appear in April, as well as reposted ads from the previous months. During May, total ads increased by only 0.2 percent and new ads declined 3 percent from the previous month. Over the year (May'06 — May'07) total ads and new ads rose 29 percent and 24 percent, respectively.

The May figures reported in the Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series™ reflect the sum of the number of unduplicated online job ads for each day from mid-April to mid-May. This new series, which includes data from April 2005, does not have sufficient history to allow for seasonally adjusted monthly data.

In May, the fastest monthly growth was in the West South Central region (up 5 percent) with more modest gains in the Mountain, West North Central and North and South Central regions). Regions posting declines included the New England, Middle Atlantic, and South Atlantic regions with the largest decline in the Pacific region (down 2 percent).

Alaska posts the highest ads rate for the first time.

Montana leads the nation with the lowest supply/demand rate this month.

Online advertised vacancies in California, the state with the largest labor force in the nation, totaled 705,200 in April. The volume of online advertised vacancies in California was significantly above the next highest states, Texas (368,400), New York (313,700), Florida (288,100) and Illinois (207,900).

Alaska posted 5.23 vacancies for every 100 persons in the state labor force, the highest rate in the nation. Massachusetts (5.04) and Colorado (4.84) 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 included Montana (0.56), Utah (0.68), and Virginia (0.68).

States where the number of unemployed persons looking for work significantly exceeded the number of online advertised demand included Mississippi (4.3) and Michigan (4.1).

Over 412,500 ads posted for professional healthcare occupations in May.

Management and Business/Financial occupations account for more than 1/3 of online ads in some regions.

In May, occupations with substantial advertised online vacancies nationally were healthcare practitioner and technical workers (412,500) and management positions (396,600). "These are also, on average, among the highest paying occupations," said Levanon. According to the latest federal hourly wage data, wages average almost $30 an hour for healthcare practitioners and technical workers.

San Jose ranks first with 6.9 ads per 100 persons in the labor force.

Salt Lake City and Washington D.C. have the lowest supply/demand ratio in the nation.

In May, the number of unemployed persons looking for work was less than the number of advertised vacancies in 16 of the 52 metro areas for which data is reported separately. The top ranking areas were Salt Lake City, Washington D.C., Austin, San Francisco and San Jose.

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 May, with 312,700 and 256,000, respectively. The top two metro areas in terms of advertised vacancies per 100 persons in the local labor force were San Jose (6.9) and San Francisco (6.53), followed by Austin (6.21), and Denver (5.84).

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