Market Digest

Job demand drops 100,000 in March after dipping only 6,600 in February.

February and March losses slow significantly from the sharp 1 million loss in December and January.

Historical data for May 2005 through July 2007 have been revised.

Outlook: March’s numbers are evidence that the downturn in the labor market has not reversed yet.

Online advertised vacancies dropped 100,000 to 3,248,000 in March, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series (HWOL)(TM) released today. The March loss follows sharp drops of 507,000 in December and 506,000 in January and a very modest dip of 6,600 in February. This has resulted in a decline of over 1,120,000 advertised vacancies, or over 25 percent, in the last four months.

“The March numbers indicate that we are not at the bottom of the employment cycle but that the declines in labor demand may be slowing,” said Gad Levanon, Senior Economist at The Conference Board. “The March decline is significant but substantially less than the 500,000 monthly drops we were seeing in December and January. When the Federal employment numbers are released this Friday, we still expect a very large drop and last month’s gap of 9 million between labor demand (HWOL) and supply (unemployment) will widen further.”

“The next two months, April and May, are when employers typically ratchet up their spring hiring, and these months will be a good indication of whether labor demand is beginning to turn around,” Levanon noted. In March, there were slightly over 2 advertised vacancies for every 100 people in the labor force compared to slightly over 3 vacancies per 100 in March 2008.

REGIONAL/STATE HIGHLIGHTS

Advertised vacancies up in 16 of the 50 States in March.

No State has a favorable Supply/Demand rate (fewer unemployed persons than advertised vacancies).

The national picture continued to be negative in March with online labor demand declining in all four regions. However, there are some brighter areas in the South and Midwest including Florida, Minnesota, and Michigan, where the number of advertised vacancies was up over the month. All of the most populous states in the West and Northeast posted decreases, as did many of the most populous states in the South and half of those in the Midwest.

The 14,400 drop in the South reflected a mixture of declines in states like Texas and Virginia, which more than offset increases in other states like Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia. Texas posted the largest March decline (-16,500). Virginia was next (-8,700) and was followed by Maryland (-4,500). North Carolina continued its downward trend with a modest decline of 1,200. Other populous states in the South posted gains: 8,900 in Florida and a modest 400 in Georgia. Smaller states like Tennessee (up 1,100) and West Virginia (up 1,200) also posted gains in March.

Among the larger states in the Northeast region, New York posted the largest decrease in labor demand (-14,600). Massachusetts posted the next largest decrease (-8,900) and was followed by Pennsylvania (-8,600) and New Jersey (-1,100).

In the West, California and Arizona have shown downward trends since Summer 2007 and also posted declines in March — California -19,800 and Arizona -2,400. Labor demand in Washington and Colorado began to turn down in Summer 2008 and was down 8,900 and 1,900 respectively in March.

In the Midwest region, Michigan continued its February gain with a March increase of 2,100. Minnesota posted a gain of 1,400. Missouri continued its decline (-700 in March). Wisconsin dropped 3,500. Illinois, which had increased by 4,400 in February, dropped 6,000. Ohio, which had gained a modest 300 in February, gained 700 in March.

Among the states with smaller populations, states with modest declines in March were Vermont (-200), Oregon (-400), Montana (-600), Mississippi (-700), North Dakota (-800) and Wyoming (-800).

The downward trend in employer demand coupled with the monthly increases in unemployment is creating a widening gap in the supply/demand balance in most States and making it increasingly difficult for the unemployed to find jobs. The Supply/Demand rate for the U.S. has been increasing and in February (the latest month for which unemployment numbers are available) was at 3.72, up from 3.46 in January, or close to 4 unemployed for every online advertised vacancy.

The highest Supply/Demand rate is in Michigan (8.37), or over 8 unemployed people for every advertised vacancy. Other states where there are over 5 unemployed for every advertised vacancy include Indiana (6.70), Kentucky (6.66), Mississippi (6.58), North Carolina (6.46), South Carolina (5.74), Ohio (5.61), Florida (5.59) and Tennessee (5.59).

It should be noted that the Supply/Demand rates only provide 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 (see Occupational Highlights section).

OCCUPATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

Labor demand down over 30 percent from year ago levels for a wide range of occupations.

Job demand is hard hit in Management; Office & Administrative Support; Computer & Mathematical Jobs; Business & Finance; and Architecture & Engineering.

Online job demand for Healthcare Support occupations shows strength with modest increase of 5,000.

The widespread nature of the downturn in the economy remains evident in the large number of occupations where online advertised vacancies in March were 30 percent or more below levels in March 2008. The list of occupations experiencing severe declines in labor demand included both high-paying occupations like Management where wages average over $46.00/hour to lower-paying occupations like Office & Administrative Support at $15.00/hour.

In March, there were 365,500 online advertised vacancies for management positions — a decline of 173,000, 32 percent from last March’s level. Demand for office and administrative support positions dropped 172,000 to 309,200 and was 36 percent below the March 2008 level. Computer and mathematical job ads were down 158,800 to 381,300 over the same period. Other categories showing severe declines included business & finance (-83,600), architecture and engineering (-70,800), and healthcare practitioners and technical (-57,200).

In the healthcare field, job demand for healthcare support workers was up slightly (5,000) to 94,700.

METRO AREA HIGHLIGHTS

50 of top 52 Metro areas post over-the-year declines in job demand in March.

Oklahoma City labor demand up 1,200 over last year’s levels, and Honolulu gains 1,100 advertised vacancies.

In March, 50 of the 52 metropolitan areas for which data are reported separately posted declines in the number of online advertised vacancies from last March. Honolulu with 10,400 ads was well above levels of last year (12.6 percent), and Oklahoma City, with 16,500, gained 1,200 ads compared to last year. The New York metro area, while continuing to post the largest number of advertised vacancies (176,400), had 125,500 fewer ads than in March 2008. Washington, D.C., with the next highest number of advertised vacancies, was down 26,400. Los Angeles, next in line, was down 66,700.

In no metro area did the number of advertised vacancies exceed the number of unemployed. On the other hand, metro areas in which the respective number of unemployed is substantially above the number of online advertised vacancies are Riverside, CA, where there are over 13 unemployed people for every advertised vacancy (13.4), Detroit (11.4), Sacramento (5.9), Providence (5.8), Los Angeles (5.7), Louisville (5.6), Portland (5.6), Tampa (5.5) and Miami (5.5). Supply/Demand rate data are for January 2009, the latest month for which unemployment data for local areas are available.

Revision to Historical Data

Historical data for May 2005 through July 2007 have been revised to incorporate an improved Standard Occupational Coding (SOC) methodology; revised data for August 2007 forward had been released earlier. With the completion of the SOC coding update for the full historical series, testing has now started for the production of seasonally adjusted occupational time series data for Table 7 of the HWOL press release.

PROGRAM NOTES

The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series(TM) measures the number of new, first-time online jobs and jobs reposted from the previous month 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 was published for over 55 years and discontinued in July 2008 and continues to be available for research), 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.

With the October 1, 2008 release, HWOL began providing seasonally adjusted data for the U.S., the 9 Census regions and 50 States. This data series, for which the earliest data is May 2005, continues to publish not seasonally adjusted data for 52 large metropolitan areas and occupations. It is The Conference Board’s intent to provide seasonally adjusted data for both large metro areas and occupations in the future.

People using this data are urged to review the information on the database and methodology available on The Conference Board 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 Corporation. Additional information on the Bureau of Labor Statistics data used in this release can be found on the BLS website, www.bls.gov.

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 website at www.conference-board.org.

WANTED Technologies Corporation.

WANTED is a leading supplier of real-time sales and business intelligence solutions for the media classified and recruitment industries. Using its proprietary On-Demand data mining, lead generation and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) integrated technologies, WANTED aggregates real-time data from thousands of online job boards, real estate and newspaper sites, as well as corporate Web sites on a daily basis.

WANTED’s data is used to optimize sales and to implement marketing strategies within the classified ad departments of major media organizations, as well as by staffing firms, advertising agencies and human resources specialists. For more information, please visit: http://www.wantedtech.com/.