Online Job Vacancies Show Softening in Demand
- Advertised vacancies rose slightly by 0.5% for August Healthcare professional and technical workers remain in high demand
- Ads rates remain high in the Mountain region as well as
In August there were 4,104,800 online advertised vacancies, an increase of 20,600 or 0.5% from the July level, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series™ (HWOL) released today. Online advertised vacancies were up (12%) over a year ago. There were 2.65 advertised vacancies online for every 100 persons in the labor force in August.
"The August numbers point to a continued softening in labor demand," said Gad Levanon, economist at The Conference Board. "August is typically a month when businesses step up hiring. Although this online data series does not have enough history to seasonally adjust the monthly data, online job demand was virtually unchanged in August which is below what one would expect."
In August, 2,780,400 of the 4,104,800 unduplicated online advertised vacancies were new ads that did not appear in July, while the remainder were reposted ads from the previous month. The 0.5% monthly increase in total ads reflected a 6% increase in new ads that offset the decline in reposted ads. Over the last year, total ads and new ads rose 12% and 14%, respectively.