The number of jobs advertised online in the U.S. declined in May by 13.2 percent from the May 2007 level, according to The Conference Board.
This is the third consecutive month of declines for the U.S. as a whole. The May decline saw 579,000 fewer jobs listed than in the same period a year ago. A total of 3.8 million job openings were listed in May, accounting for 2.5 for every 100 people in the labor force, down from a high of 2.9 a year ago.
“May shows a slight recovery from the large April decline, but overall the number of online advertised vacancies has been on a downward trend for the past several months. The demand for labor will likely be sluggish this summer,” said Gad Levanon, economist at The Conference Board.
“This lackluster job outlook is clearly a contributing factor in consumer confidence shrinking to its lowest point in nearly two decades, as reported by The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey.”
In May, 2.7 million of the total number of job postings was new, while the rest were reposted from April.
Alaska had the highest ad rate in the country for the ninth month in a row and Wyoming had the lowest supply/demand rate. The number of advertised vacancies dropped year- over- year in 43 states, and all states had a slowing in growth rate.
States where job seekers are continuing to see a large number of job openings include Alaska, Nevada and Colorado. Half of the top 10 sates with the most ad vacancies are west of the Mississippi.
States where the number of unemployed people looking for work dramatically exceeded the number of online job openings included Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, and Mississippi.
California, the state with the largest labor force in the nation, totaled 505,700 online advertised jobs, down nearly 200,000 or 28 percent from the May 2007 level. In Texas, the number of online advertised vacancies was down 13 percent, and in New York the number dropped 16 percent from year ago levels.
