In October there were 4,161,700 online job vacancies advertised, a decrease of 108,300 or -2.5 percent from September, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series out today.
Nationally online advertised job vacancies were up 8.6 percent over the year. There were 2.71 advertised online vacancies for every 100 persons in the labor pool in October.
“The year on year growth rate of online advertised vacancies, while still positive, has slowed in recent months, and the 8.6% increase (October’06-October’07) is the smallest since this series began in May 2005,” said Gad Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board.
“These data suggest that the slow pace in the labor market will continue in the months ahead and is likely to extend into the early months of 2008. We are getting the same signal from The Conference Board Consumer Confidence survey released yesterday, which showed further weakness in the labor market and the U.S. economy as a whole.”
Over the last three months advertised job vacancies dropped in eight of the nine U.S. regions. The largest declines happened in New England which fell -12.0 percent followed by East North Central dropping -10.8 percent, West North Central falling -10.5 percent and the South Atlantic regions also declining -10.5 percent.
Ken Goldstein, labor economist at The Conference Board said the latest numbers on the job market indicate it was slower this summer than earlier this year but it is not losing ground heading into the fall and winter months.
