In November 2007, there were 4,072,600 online advertised vacancies, a decrease of 2.1% from the October 2007 level, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series (HWOL). Nationally, online advertised vacancies were up (9.7%) over the year (November 2006 to November 2007). There were 2.65 advertised vacancies online for every 100 persons in the labor force in November.
“The growth in the number of online ads has slowed in the last two months and while year over year growth is still positive, the pace has definitely slowed,” Gad Levanon, economist at The Conference Board, said in a press release. “In addition to trimming their hiring intentions, in recent months businesses have also been pulling back on investments in capital goods. At the same time, American consumers are feeling more pessimistic about job growth and the U.S. economy. These data suggest that we are not likely to see any significant boost in employment through the early months of 2008.”
In November, 2,808,300 of the 4,072,600 unduplicated online advertised vacancies were new ads that did not appear in October, while the remainders are reposted ads from the previous month. The 2.1% decrease in total ads was caused primarily by a 2.3% decrease in new ads.
The national decline in advertised vacancies between October 2007 and November 2007 reflected a lower volume of ads in seven of the nine census regions. The majority of the regions saw a slight decline from last month but remained positive from last year’s time. Seven of the nine regions continued to show a gain in labor demand, with New England and the Pacific region as the two exceptions.
Health care practitioners and technical workers (301,200) and management positions (280,900) continue to be top occupations with a significant number of ads posted online. Also in high demand are office and administrative support (247,500), business and financial occupations (244,600), and computer and mathematical (225,500) occupations.
