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* The year on year growth rate of online advertised vacancies at 6% is the smallest annual increase since this series began in May 2005
* Online advertised vacancies are down 13% over the month due to seasonality
In December there were 3,541,200 online advertised vacancies, a rise of 6 percent from last December, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series(TM) released today. While this number is up from last year, it was down by 13 percent from the November level, mostly due to a downward seasonal pattern, which began with the Thanksgiving holiday. There were 2.3 advertised vacancies online for every 100 persons in the labor force in December. The monthly decrease in advertised job vacancies was reflected in all of the 50 states and major metropolitan areas.
"The period between Thanksgiving and the end of the year is typically slow in terms of hiring, so it's not surprising to see a large decline in the number of job ads last month," said Gad Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board. However, the year on year growth rate of online advertised vacancies, while still positive, has slowed in recent months, and the 5.9 percent increase (December '06 - December '07) is the smallest since this series began in May 2005. "These data suggest that the slow pace in the labor market will continue in the months ahead and is likely to extend into the spring of 2008," he noted.
THE NATIONAL - REGIONAL PICTURE
In December, 2,305,100 of the 3,541,200 unduplicated online advertised vacancies were new ads that did not appear in November, while the remainders are reposted ads from the previous month. The 13 percent decrease in total ads in December was caused primarily by a 17.9 percent decrease in new ads. Despite these declines, over-the-year (December '06 - December '07) total ads and new ads rose 5.9 percent and 9.7 percent, respectively.
The national decline in advertised vacancies between November and December '07 reflected a lower volume of ads in all nine Census regions. All of the regions saw a decline (between 10 and 15 percent) from last month. Over-the-year (December '06 - December '07), seven of the nine regions continued to show a gain in labor demand. Two exceptions to this were again New England and the Pacific regions, where the level of online job ads has been below the previous year level for three months.
The December figures reported in the Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series(TM) reflect the sum of the number of unduplicated online job ads for each day from mid-November to mid-December. This new series, which includes data from April 2005, does not have sufficient history to allow for seasonally adjusted monthly data.

  STATE HIGHLIGHTS

  * Alaska posts the highest ads rate in the country for the fourth month in
    a row
  * Delaware leads the nation with the lowest supply/demand rate this month

Alaska posted 4.53 vacancies for every 100 persons in the state labor force, the highest rate in the nation, for the fourth month in a row. Nevada (3.98) and Colorado (3.90) were close behind in the number of advertised vacancies when adjusted for the size of the state labor force. Other states in the top five included Delaware (3.86) and Massachusetts (3.77).
Online advertised vacancies in California, the state with the largest labor force in the nation, totaled 502,600 in December. The volume of online advertised vacancies in California was significantly above the next highest states, Texas (314,500), New York (252,100) and Florida (215,400).
"Although one cannot infer that the occupation or geographic location of unemployed persons matches the occupation or geographic location of the vacancies, looking at the number of unemployed in relation to the number of advertised vacancies provides an indication of available job opportunities for the unemployed," said Levanon. Using the latest unemployment data available from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and computing the supply/demand ratio (unemployed/advertised vacancies), the states with the most favorable (e.g., lowest) supply/demand rates included Delaware (0.71), North Dakota (0.75), Utah (0.79), and Virginia (0.81). There were 15 states where the supply/demand rate was less than 1.0, indicating that the number of unemployed workers was fewer than the number of online job ads. For the nation as a whole, the comparable supply/demand rate for November was 1.7, indicating that the number of unemployed persons exceeded the number of online advertised vacancies.
States where the number of unemployed persons looking for work significantly exceeded the number of online advertised vacancies included Mississippi (4.55) and Michigan (3.99), Arkansas (2.91), Indiana (2.67) and Kentucky (2.67).

  OCCUPATIONAL FOCUS

  * More than 284,000 ads were posted for healthcare practitioners and
    technical occupations in December.
  * Management and Business/Financial occupations account for more than 30%
    of online ads in New York and Illinois.

"Many jobs in high demand are also, on average, among the highest paying occupations," said Levanon. Healthcare practitioners and technical workers (284,400) and management positions (248,000) continue to be the top occupations with a significant number of ads posted online. According to the latest federal hourly wage data, wages average above $44 an hour for management positions and about $30 an hour for healthcare practitioners and technicians. Also in high demand are computer and quantitative skills related occupations (213,200), business and financial occupations (212,000), and office and administrative support (205,700).

  METRO AREA HIGHLIGHTS

  * Austin has the lowest supply/demand ratio in the nation.
  * Milwaukee leads the nation with the highest local ads rate

The top metro areas in December with above five advertised vacancies per 100 persons in the local labor force included Milwaukee (5.31), San Jose (5.30) and Austin (5.07). The number of unemployed persons looking for work was fewer than the number of advertised vacancies in 16 of the 52, or almost one-third, of the metro areas for which data are reported separately. Cities across the nation where the number of advertised vacancies are plentiful in relation to the number of unemployed included Austin; Salt Lake City; Washington, D.C.; Denver; Phoenix and New Orleans.
Two of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, New York and Los Angeles, were first and second in the absolute volume of advertised job vacancies in November, with 258,000 and 178,700, respectively.
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