Advertisement
"The year on year growth rate of online advertised vacancies, while stillpositive, has slowed in recent months, and the 8.6% increase (October '06-October '07) is the smallest since this series began in May 2005," said GadLevanon, Economist at The Conference Board. "These data suggest that the slowpace in the labor market will continue in the months ahead and is likely toextend into the early months of 2008. We are getting the same signal from TheConference Board Consumer Confidence survey released yesterday, which showedfurther weakness in the labor market and the U.S. economy as a whole."
Advertisement
THE NATIONAL - REGIONAL PICTURE
In October, 2,875,300 of the 4,161,700 unduplicated online advertisedvacancies were new ads that did not appear in September, while the remainderare reposted ads from the previous month. The 2.5 percent decrease in totalads was caused primarily by a 2 percent decrease in new ads. Despite thesedeclines, over-the-year (October '06 - October '07) total ads and new ads rose8.6 percent and 13.8 percent, 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 (advolume was virtually unchanged in the Middle Atlantic region). Over-the-year(October '06 - October '07), seven of the nine regions continued to show again in labor demand. The Mountain region once again had the highest ad rate(3.74), as four of the region's states (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Montana)are among the top 10 states with the highest ads rate. The central regions ofthe country experienced the largest over the year gains with the West SouthCentral region leading (up 29%), followed by the East North Central region (up19%). Despite the over-the-year gains, the growth rate in most regions sloweddown in recent months. The New England region, which, despite having thesecond highest ads rates (3.64 ads per 100 persons in the regional laborforce), declined 6% in the last 12 months. The Pacific region, which had anads rate of 3.45, also dipped 2.4% from last year's level.
The October figures reported in the Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series(TM)reflect the sum of the number of unduplicated online job ads for each day frommid-September to mid-October. This new series, which includes data from April2005, does not have sufficient history to allow for seasonally adjustedmonthly data.
Alaska posted 4.66 vacancies for every 100 persons in the state laborforce, the highest rate in the nation, for the second month in a row. Nevada(4.51) and Colorado (4.35) were close behind in the number of advertisedvacancies when adjusted for the size of the state labor force. Other statesin the top five included Delaware (4.30) and Montana (4.30).
Online advertised vacancies in California, the state with the largestlabor force in the nation, totaled 628,500 in October. The volume of onlineadvertised vacancies in California was significantly above the next higheststates, Texas (364,600), New York (290,300) and Florida (244,100).
"Although one cannot infer that the occupation or geographic location ofunemployed persons matches the occupation or geographic location of thevacancies, looking at the number of unemployed in relation to the number ofadvertised vacancies provides an indication of available job opportunities forthe unemployed," said Levanon. Using the latest unemployment data availablefrom the Federal Bureau of Labor Statis
