Online Job Listings Declined in August, 3.5 Seekers for Every Job

The number of online advertised job listings were down 43,500 in September to 3.94 million, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine Data Series, released today, 28 Sept. 2011.

The September drop follows a decline of 164,000 in August and a decrease of 217,000 in July. The Supply/Demand rate stands at 3.50, indicating there were 3.5 unemployed for every online advertised vacancy in August, the latest monthly data available for unemployment.

“In the last six months, labor demand has experienced a drop of 500,000, cutting sharply into the gain of 763,000 at the beginning of the year,” said June Shelp, VP at The Conference Board. “This narrows the average monthly gain for 2011 to 29,000.”

The slowdown, however, varies widely for different occupations. In legal occupations, labor demand stalled as early as the beginning of 2010, but in the last six months it has dropped 23 percent to 21,600 in September.

In contrast, advertised vacancies for production workers gained steadily since mid-2009 until July 2011, but in the last two months, it dipped further. It is now down 10 percent to 117,000 in September.

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