The Daily Recruiter

If you’re currently looking for jobs online, you may have had a harder time finding openings last month, as the number of jobs posted online decreased significantly.

The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series recently reported that online advertised vacancies decrease by 66,700 to 3,294,800 during the month of June. Since January, online labor demand has dropped by 71,000. While that seems like a lot, it pales in comparison to the 1,200,000 decline from August 2008 to Janaury of this year.

“We are not out of the woods yet, but job demand has definitely stabilized since January,” Gad Levanon, senior economist at The Conference Board, said. “Although there is some bounce in the monthly numbers, the number of online advertised vacancies has held steady in the last three months.

“Across the U.S., it is an increasingly mixed picture with some states, like Florida and Georgia, showing some modest gains, others such as New York, North Carolina holding steady, and some, like California and Pennsylvania, yet to show real improvement,” he added.

Among the 20 most populous states, unemployed people outnumber advertised vacancies, with a range as low as 2 to 1 in Maryland to as high as 10 to 1 in Michigan.

All four regions of the country saw a decline in advertised job listings, which dropped by 3,400 in the South; by 18,100 in the Northeast; by 13,400 in the Midwest and by 10,300 in the West.

As far as industries, vacancies increased during June for many occupational categories, such as arts, design, entertainment and sports. Openings for construction and legal jobs remained unchanged for the month, but were worse than last year. Decreases were seen for sales occupations and several white-collage job categories, including the computer and mathematical industries.

In fact, almost half of the decrease in online job postings reflect dips in computer and mathematical science, which saw 19,900 fewer postings, and sales and related occupations, which saw 11,700 fewer postings. Other large declines included postings for medical jobs, such as health practitioners, and technical occupations, which declined by 10,400 postings, and architecture and engineering, which dropped by 10,000 postings.

Among the top 10 occupations advertised online, there were more vacancies than unemployed people seeking positions for healthcare practitioners and computer and mathematical science. On the flip side, in sales and related occupations, there were about four people seeking jobs in the field for every online job opening; there were about five unemployed people seeking jobs for every opening in office and administrative support; and there were almost two people seeking jobs for every one opening in management positions.

By Jennifer Carpenter, Junior Copywriter
www.cheezhead.com