Online Advertised Job Vacancies Dip
Nationally online advertised vacancies were up (8.6%) over the year (October'06 — October'07). There were 2.71 advertised vacancies online for every 100 persons in the labor force in October.
"The year on year growth rate of online advertised vacancies, while still positive, has slowed in recent months, and the 8.6% increase is the smallest since this series began in May 2005," said Gad Levanon, economist at The Conference Board.
"These data suggest that the slow pace in the labor market will continue in the months ahead and is likely to extend into the early months of 2008. We are getting the same signal from The Conference Board Consumer Confidence survey released yesterday, which showed further weakness in the labor market and the
In October, 2,875,300 of the 4,161,700 unduplicated online advertised vacancies were new ads that did not appear in September, while the rest were reposted ads. The 2.5% decrease in total ads was caused primarily by a 2% decrease in new ads. Despite these declines, over-the-year (October'06 — October'07) total ads and new ads rose 8.6% and 13.8%, respectively.
The national decline in advertised vacancies between September and October '07 reflected a lower volume of ads in eight of the nine Census regions (ad volume was virtually unchanged in the Middle Atlantic region). Over-the-year (October '06 — October '07) seven of the nine regions continued to show a gain in labor demand.
States where the number of unemployed persons looking for work significantly exceeded the number of online advertised demand included
The top metro areas in October with around six advertised vacancies per 100 persons in the local labor force included
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 October, with 300,300 and 226,300, respectively.