Online advertised job vacancies saw a six percent seasonal decline from December to January according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series. For the year online advertised vacancies were up 12 percent for the nation as a whole.
“January’s job vacancy data points to a labor market that is definitely holding its own,” said Gad Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board. “Although this online series does not have sufficient history to seasonally adjust the monthly data, it is clear from the weekly data that the declines were all in the holiday weeks at the end of December and the beginning of January when hiring activity is very low.”
There were 3,141,800 unduplicated jobs advertised online in January, 1,987,800 were new ads that did not appear in December. In January, total ads dropped 6 percent and new ads decreased by 5 percent from the previous month.
States with the largest decline in online advertised job vacancies between December and January included California (-57,600), New York (-14,600), New Jersey (-12,200), Illinois (-10,500) and Pennsylvania (-9,600). Large cities that contributed to the decline were Los Angeles (-25,000), New York (-17,800), San Francisco (-8,000), Chicago (-6,800) and Philadelphia (-6,200).
There were five states that had an increase in ads in January. They were Mississippi, Wyoming, Vermont, Maine, and Idaho. Each of these states saw a slight increase of around 500 ads.
Levanon added,” Like last year, the numbers rebounded to their pre-holiday levels by the second week of January. In addition, the number of online advertised vacancies grew significantly during the last 12 months and do not signal any weakness in the labor market.”
Add to 
Mike is a staff writer for murdok. Visit murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
