Online Job Ads Down 76,200 in Nov., 3.5 Seekers for Every Job

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Online advertised vacancies were down 76,200 in November to 3,857,200, according to The Conference Board’s Help Wanted OnLine data released 30 Nov. 2011.

The November drop follows a decline of 14,000 in October and 44,000 in September. The job supply/demand rate stands at 3.53, indicating there were 3.5 unemployed for every online advertised vacancy in October, the latest monthly data available for unemployment.

June Shelp

June Shelp

“The November decline in labor demand, following on the heels of the drops for the previous five months, is not good news for the labor market,” said June Shelp, vice president, The Conference Board.

The average monthly gain in online job listings for 2011 is now just 15,800, as the decline of 589,000 in recent months largely offset the gain of 763,000 in early 2011, according to the Conference Board report..

The lackluster labor market is impacting a wide range of occupations including the professional occupations such as management, finance, computers and math. All have lost ground during the past six months. The November online labor demand for each occupational area was modestly below the number of advertised vacancies in January 2011.

The supply/demand rate for the U.S. in October (the latest month for which unemployment numbers are available) stood at 3.53, indicating that there are close to 4 unemployed workers for every online advertised vacancy. Nationally, there are 10 million more unemployed workers than advertised vacancies.

The number of advertised vacancies exceeded the number of unemployed only in North Dakota, where the supply/demand rate was 0.88. States with the next lowest rates included Nebraska (1.40), South Dakota (1.41), Vermont (1.59), Alaska (1.76), Minnesota (1.94), and New Hampshire (1.99) (Table 4).

The State with the highest supply/demand rate is Mississippi (7.87), where there are close to 8 unemployed workers for every online advertised vacancy. The States with the next highest Supply/Demand rates are Kentucky (5.16), California (4.99), Alabama (4.92), and Illinois (4.85).

It should be noted that the supply/demand rate only provides a measure of relative tightness of the individual state labor markets and does not suggest that the occupations of the unemployed directly align with the occupations of the advertised vacancies.

During November, 15 of the 22 Standard Occupational Classifications (SOC codes) that are examined individually by the Conference Board declined. Six occupations posted some gains and one, legal, was unchanged. For most of the occupational categories the November change, whether up or down, was modest.

“Looking at the 22 broad occupational categories over the 11 months of 2011, relatively few occupations have held their ground and posted gains,” said Shelp.

Construction and Extraction has had a lackluster but relatively steady increase throughout 2011; it has risen on average just over 1,800 per month to 75,900 advertised vacancies in November. Demand for Production workers has been even more modest with the November figure of 118,000 just 1,000 above the 117,000 being demanded in January.

In November, 35 of the 52 metropolitan areas for which data are reported separately posted over-the-year increases in the number of online advertised vacancies. Among the three metro areas with the largest numbers of advertised vacancies, the New York metro area was down 10,400, or 4.1 percent, from its November 2010 level and the Washington, DC metro area was down 1,600, or 1.1 percent, from last year. The Los Angeles metro area was down a mere 400, or 0.3 percent, from last year’s level (Table C & Table 5).

The number of unemployed exceeded the number of advertised vacancies in all of the 52 metro areas for which information is reported.

“The level of labor demand alone, however, does not tell the whole story,” said Shelp. “The difficulty of finding a job is a factor of not only the number of openings but also the number of people competing for the advertised position.”

Washington, D.C., continues to have the most favorable supply/demand rate (1.31) with about one advertised vacancy for every unemployed worker. Oklahoma City, Minneapolis- St. Paul, Boston, and Salt Lake City had the next lowest supply/demand rates.

On the other hand, metro areas in which the respective number of unemployed is substantially above the number of online advertised vacancies include Riverside, Calif. — where there are nearly nine unemployed workers for every advertised vacancy (8.87) — Miami (5.44), Sacramento (5.02), Los Angeles (4.70), Las Vegas (4.40), and Memphis (4.23).

 

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