Aug. Online Ads Increase By 1 Million vs. Apr. 2009

"Online advertised vacancies dropped 57,100 in August to 4,236,200, following an increase of 139,200 in July, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine (HWOL) Data Series released today. The gap between the number of unemployed and advertised vacancies (supply/demand rate) stood at 3.40 unemployed for every advertised vacancy in July (the last available unemployment data) but is down from its peak of 4.73 in October 2009."

“Labor demand continues to struggle to post gains month after month,” said June Shelp, Vice President at The Conference Board. “During the last few months, gains in online job demand one month have been partially offset by dips in the following month. But the good news is that overall job demand is still maintaining a modest upward trend for both the nation and most States.”

MP: Compared to last August (3.37 million ads), online advertised vacancies were 25.4% higher this August (4.236 million ), and except for July's level of 4.29 million online ads, was the highest monthly level since November 2008 (see chart above).  July's 25.4% year-over-year increase was the sixth straight increase of 20% or higher, and follows increases of 30.8% in July, 26.1% in June, 23.3% in May, 31.4% in April and 20.6% in March.  Compared to the April 2009 bottom of 3.2 million online vacancies, the August count of 4.23 million help wanted ads is more than one million job openings higher. 

See Scott Grannis' related post here.