The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series found that online advertised vacancies increased by 169,000 to 2,464,800 during August.
August job demand data is on par with The Conference Board’s recently released Consumer Confidence Index, which also rose during August, and reflected consumers’ feelings that jobs were becoming easier to find.
“The August increase is good news showing what we hope will be a continued improvement in job demand this fall,” Gad Levanon, senior economist at The Conference Board, said. “While all of this is good news, the gap between the number of unemployed and the number of advertised vacancies still remains at about 11 million, with over four unemployed for every online advertised job vacancy.”
Since April, online job demand has increased by 300,000, with many of the largest states showing stable trends after two years of losses that began in May 2007. As of August, job demand trends have turned positive in New York, Maryland and Virginia.
August also saw strong gains in several of the country’s largest states. California added 26,700 listings, Texas added 21,900 listings, Florida added 15,700 listings and New York added 11,100 listings.
Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations, which is the largest category in terms of volume, saw its online job listings increase by 52,700 during August to 574,400. There were 2.5 unemployed workers for every advertised vacancy in this field.
“Advertised vacancies in this occupational category have been declining, and the August increase is the first significant monthly rise we have seen in over a year,” Levanon said.
However, labor demand for healthcare support occupations has remained mostly steady dyring the last two years, and in August increased by 16,500, or 16 percent, to 117,800. Individual occupations showing increases included physical and occupational therapists, physical and occupational therapist assistants, speech-language pathologists, home healthcare aids, medical assistants and registered and practical nurses.
Advertised vacancies in management occupations have trended upward since May, and during August increased by 18,900, or 5 percent, to 431,600. There were 1.7 unemployed people for every online advertised vacancy in this field.
Among the top 10 occupations in August with online advertised vacancies, computer and mathematical science increased by 8,800 to 406,800; sales and related occupations rose by 6,200 to 382,100; and Office and Administrative Support was up by 7,400 to 347,100.
Only two of the top 10 occupation categories declined during August. Business and financial operations decreased by 2,100 to 174,900 and arts, design, entertainment, sports and media declined by 1,100 to 100,800. Job demand for architecture and engineering was unchanged at 117,700.
Popularity: 3% [?]
September 2nd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Excellent to actually see the numbers behind the buzz. I am a Partner for 20 person recruiting firm and my team leads the Online Marketing practice. We happen to be feeling the buzz, seeing significant activity and getting prepared for an uptick.
Now in talking with some of the most prominent online business/agency owners their outlook is still pretty conservative. Most see improvements however they are not yet ready to pull the trigger on hiring. Temporary staffing is trending upwards which is always an indicator that permanent hiring is coming. Most executives are telling us that they are not 100% sure of what is going to happen however money is trickling in and are hopeful that hiring will ensue significantly in Q1 of 2010.
More good news is that US productivity is up 6.6% for Q2, highest it has been in six years.
Things are looking up but we are still scraping bottom.
September 2nd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Unemployment is a worldwide scenario. Government will have to focus in providing more stable jobs with high cost of salary. I want to help.
http://www.bigjobsboard.com
Thank You and Good Luck!
September 3rd, 2009 at 10:23 am
All good and solid news. Something I see consistently is the focus on making this transition immediate from a recession to a recovery. That simply is not going to happen. Increased jobs are coming and the release of capital from banks and other financial institutions is starting to increase. But without a solid economic foundational plan, all of these hopes could be well dashed. Increased jobs are part of the process that come from solid lending, increased spending on R&D, and some tolerance of risk in the market place. In this past recession, all have been paralyzed and continue to not allow the increase in jobs to come as quickly as everyone wants to see.
September 11th, 2009 at 9:57 am
The number one factor accounting for double-digit increases in the average length of unemployment is the reliance on job boards.