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The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series(TM) Dips in April

Posted on: Tuesday, 16 May 2006, 12:02 CDT

NEW YORK, May 16 /PRNewswire/ -- New online job ads dipped in April to 2,262,700, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series(TM). The April level was 138,400, or 6 percent, below the previous month and followed a sharp rise in March. Despite the decline, the number of new ads for online jobs in April was the second highest since The Conference Board launched the Help-Wanted OnLine series in April 2005 and well above last year's level.

In April, there were 1.51 online job ads per 100 persons in the U.S. labor force, compared with 1.60 in March and 1.33 in February.

The Conference Board now has 13 months of data for the Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series. From April 2005 to April 2006, new online job ads increased 26 percent, an increase that is consistent with the rise seen in other labor market indicators during the same period.

"This rate of change is in line with growth rates of other vacancy measures during periods of economic expansion," said Gad Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board. "It is typical for measures related to job openings to show much greater movement, both up and down, than you typically see in the overall employment data. The monthly net change in employment is reflective of the underlying dynamic of the job market which includes people leaving jobs as well as new hires. In the Bureau of Labor Statistics' JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) series, which measures job vacancies at the national level, 2006 monthly figures are running on average about 10-20 percent above the 2005 levels."

The monthly figures reported in the Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series include all unduplicated new online job ads for each day of the calendar month. The series is new, with data available monthly beginning in April 2005. It does not yet have a sufficient history to allow for seasonal adjustments.

A Cross-Country Decline Over Last Month

Declines in new online job ads were evident in all nine census regions in April compared to the March level. The largest declines for the month were in the Middle Atlantic region (New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania) and the South Atlantic region (Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia), down 10 percent and 8 percent respectively. The smallest declines were in the Mountain region (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Montana, Utah, Nevada, and Wyoming), the West South Central region (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas) and the West North Central region (Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota), down 3, 4 and 4 percent respectively. New England remains the region with the highest number of new online jobs per 100 persons (2.30), and the East South Central with the lowest (0.95).

But the figures for April 2006, compared with April 2005, show that the number of new job ads was up in all nine census regions, with the largest gains concentrated in the west and southwestern parts of the country. The largest increase was in the West South Central region, up 53 percent, where the volume of ads rose significantly after last season's hurricanes, reflecting the rebuilding efforts and population movements in the area. Other areas with substantial year-over-year gains in online job ads were the Mountain and Pacific regions (43 percent and 31 percent, respectively). In contrast, online job ads in the East South Central region (Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee) rose only 2.7 percent between April 2005 and April 2006, a rate that is substantially lower than the national average of 26 percent over the same period. "The East South Central is also the region with the lowest number of new online jobs per 100 persons," said Levanon. "So the slow increase in the number of new ads in the region might well reflect the low usage of online job advertising rather than an especially weak economy."

San Diego Tops the Nation in New Online Job Ads

Adjusting jobs ads for the size of the local labor force, San Diego with 3.43 job ads per 100 persons in the labor force leads the way among the 52 metropolitan areas for which data is published separately. Other metropolitan areas with over 3 ads per 100 persons in the labor force include Denver (3.24), San Francisco (3.34) Seattle-Tacoma (3.28), Boston (3.29) and Washington D.C. (3.06). In April, the Detroit metropolitan area with less than one online job ad per 100 persons in the labor force (0.77) had the lowest number of ads adjusted for the labor force.

ABOUT THE NEW ONLINE JOB SERIES

The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series(TM) measures the number of new, first-time online jobs posted on more than 1,200 major Internet job boards and smaller job boards that serve niche markets and smaller geographic areas.

Like The Conference Board's long running Help-Wanted Advertising Index of print ads (which has been published since 1951), the new online series is not a direct measure of job vacancies. The level of ads in both print and online may change for reasons not related to overall job demand.

The Conference Board, as a standard practice with new data series, considers the estimates in The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series(TM) to be developmental. As a not-for-profit business research organization, The Conference Board is publishing the early months of this series for use by the media, analysts, researchers and the business community. Persons using this data are urged to review the information on the database and methodology available on our website and contact the economists listed at the top of this release with questions and comments.

Background information and technical notes on this new series are available at: http://www.conference-board.org/economics/helpwantedOnline.cfm. The underlying data for this series is provided by Wanted Technologies, Inc. CareerBuilder, Inc. provides financial support for the series.

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE BOARD

Non-partisan and not-for-profit, The Conference Board is the world's leading business membership and research organization. The Conference Board produces The Consumer Confidence Index and the Leading Economic Indicators for the U.S. and other major nations. These barometers can have a major impact on the financial markets. The Conference Board also produces a wide range of authoritative reports on corporate governance and ethics, human resources and diversity, executive compensation and corporate citizenship. Our conference and council programs bring together more than 10,000 senior executives each year to share insights and learn from each other. Visit The Conference Board's award-winning website at http://www.conference-board.org/.

About WANTED Technologies Inc.

Founded in 1997, WANTED Technologies Inc. is a leading provider of real- time sales and business intelligence. Through its proprietary data mining and aggregation technology, WANTED delivers concise, accurate and actionable data, aimed at helping to increase sales and profitability for its clientele throughout North America. WANTED was recently bestowed the Model of Excellence Award by the InfoCommerce Group in recognition of online business innovation. For more information, visit http://www.wantedtech.com/.

About CareerBuilder.com

CareerBuilder.com is the nation's largest online job site with more than 20 million unique visitors and over 1 million jobs. Owned by Tribune Company, Gannett Co., Inc., and Knight Ridder, Inc., the company offers a vast online and print network to help job seekers connect with employers. CareerBuilder.com powers the career centers for more than 550 partners that include 165 newspapers and leading portals such as MSN and America Online. For more information about CareerBuilder.com products and services, visit http://www.careerbuilder.com/.

The Conference Board

CONTACT: Gad Levanon, +1-212-339-0317, or Ken Goldstein,+1-212-339-0331, or June Shelp, +1-212-339-0369

Web site: http://www.conference-board.org/economics/helpwantedOnline.cfmhttp://www.conference-board.org/http://www.wantedtech.com/http://www.careerbuilder.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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