Posted October 28, 2005 to Career News | Section Home | Print

Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series Declines in September

The number of new online job ads declined to 2,038,500 in September, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series™. This latest monthly figure is down 4.4 percent from August, with fewer jobs being offered in all 9 major regions of the country.

There were 1.36 online job ads per 100 persons in the U.S. labor force in September compared with 1.43 per 100 persons in August.

Ken Goldstein, Labor Economist at The Conference Board, says: “The September data indicate a general weakening in the job picture nationwide—a trend we were seeing before the recent hurricanes. That data are consistent with The Conference Board’s latest CEO Confidence Survey, which is also down.”

The confidence level of CEOs in the third quarter of 2005 sagged to its lowest level in four years. Also, September data from The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey revealed that consumers were also feeling less optimistic about the job market, with more consumers saying jobs are “hard to get” and fewer claiming jobs are “plentiful.”

A FASTER SLOWDOWN
“High oil prices throughout the summer and the recent hurricanes have all contributed to a faster slowdown of the economy,” adds Goldstein.

The September data is the sum of the number of new first-time online job ads posted each day of the month and reflects the initial impacts of the recent hurricanes Katrina and Rita which hit the Gulf Coast on August 29 and September 24.
The largest September decline in online jobs (6.4%) was in the South Atlantic region, which includes the East Coast states from Florida north to Delaware and Maryland. West South Central (Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma) and the Mountain (Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana) regions declined slightly less, both down 5.6% from August while the New England region was down 5.3% over the same period. The smallest monthly dip (2.8%) was in the East North Central region which includes Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

EMPLOYERS TURN TO INTERNET TO ATTRACT WORKERS
FROM NEW ORLEANS

Many employers turned to the Internet to lure workers displaced by the hurricanes. In the week immediately after Hurricane Katrina, new on-line job postings in New Orleans rose some 67 percent, jumping from an average of 1200 new postings per week to 2,000 in the week of September 4th to 10th. The bulk of the new job listings (two out of three) in New Orleans were for positions in locations outside of the devastated area – many as far away as the Pacific Northwest, New England and even Alaska and Hawaii.

Both the large national job boards and the smaller niche boards that focus on local area markets and specific occupations promise a way to streamline searching for a job, even in a far away city.

“The story from New Orleans is that employers, especially those looking to fill positions in tight labor market categories like healthcare, were able to use the Internet to tap into a pool of workers with a potentially high willingness to relocate,” adds Goldstein.

SAN FRANCISCO TOPS NATION IN ONLINE JOBS

Adjusting job ads for the size of the local labor force, San Francisco with 2.93 job ads per 100 persons in the labor force continues to lead the way among the 52 metropolitan areas for which data is published, followed closely by Boston (2.87), San Diego (2.84) and Salt Lake (2.78). The number of job ads per 100 participants in the labor force was lowest in East South Central and West South Central regions with less than one job ad per 100 persons, 0.96 and 0.94, respectively.

ABOUT THE ONLINE JOB SERIES
The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series™ measures the number of new, first-time online job ads 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 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. Over the years, analysts have applied various data-smoothing techniques to the Help-Wanted Advertising Index of print ads and determined that it continues to be a useful measure of the state of labor demand in the United States.

The Conference Board, as a standard practice with new data series, considers the estimates in The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series™ 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 on The Conference Board’s website: 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 one of the world’s leading business membership and research organizations. 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. (TSX:WAN) 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.