Online Job Demand Improves in April and the Supply/Demand Ratio is Lowest Since Fall 2008
From today's Conference Board report on online labor demand:
"Online advertised vacancies rose 90,900 in April to 4,760,500, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLin (HWOL) Data Series released today (see chart above). The April rise is the fifth consecutive monthly rise and has led to the series’ highest level to date. The Supply/Demand rate stands at 2.7 unemployed for every vacancy, and the number of unemployed was 8 million above the number of advertised vacancies.
“Labor demand continues its five-month upward trend, which has averaged about 113,000 vacancies per month,” said June Shelp, Vice President at The Conference Board. “This is welcome news for unemployed workers or those looking to change jobs.” In another positive development, labor demand in two of the traditional white-collar office professions — Legal and Office and Administrative Support — has picked up this year. Legal professions, in which demand dropped sharply in 2011, grew by 5,600 (26 percent) since January while demand for Office and administrative workers rose 71,100, (17 percent)."
MP: Both total online job vacancies (4.76 million) and new ads (3.11 million) are now well above their pre-recession levels (see chart above); total ads by 6% and new ads by 20% above 2007 peak levels. Nationally, there are 12.673 million unemployed and 4.669 million online job vacancies for a Supply/Demand ratio of 2.71, which was the third month in a row below 3.0, and the lowest since the fall of 2008, more than three years ago. Interestingly, the number of unemployed workers in booming North Dakota (11,800) is less than the number of advertised vacancies (14,400), for an eye-popping Supply/Demand rate of only 0.82.
Today's Conference Board report provides more evidence that the labor market is gradually recovering. With the number of online job vacancies in April well above its pre-recession peak levels in 2007, we can expect increased hiring through the year and a lower jobless rate.
5 Comments:
I think this is one of the surest signs of the sustainability of this recovery. As the old saying goes, "quick to fire, slow to hire."
Here's something to consider: the overall job market is adding jobs at about the same pace as the previous two expansions (91-01 and 02-08). The private sector is adding jobs at the fastest pace since the recovery in the 80's.
I hope this reflects the action on the ground, and not just a shift in job ads to the virtual world.
Nevertheless, probably good news.
Wanted Analytics provides the data for the Conference Board On-Line Help Wanted Report.
Wanted has an interesting post that lists: "The Most Wanted Skills & Certifications In The Fastest Growing Cities".
What's been interesting is that most of this month's regional Fed manufacturing surveys, plus today's Chicago PMI, have shown increases in the employment sub-indexes even though the overall indexes have been down (except Richmond, which has been the only one going up).
On the other hand, Gallup's daily unemployment survey has ticked up the past couple weeks in a pattern that is not normal seasonality. It should be going down this time of year, but it's gone up about 0.3%.
jon-
not this slow.
the jobs recovery since this recession has been dramatically slower than any in the post ww2 period. you have to go back to the 30's to find anything like this.
the current payrolls number was first reached in 2000. jobs peaked at 138 million in jan 2008. the current figure of 132.8mm is barely a recovery at all, it's mostly just population growth.
we are 3 full years into the purported recovery, and have made up only 40% of job losses. there has been nothing even remotely comparable since the 30's.
even the brutal recession of 1958 took only 9 months to recover to full employment once it ended.
the tenacity of this unemployment makes me doubt that this recovery is real as opposed to purely statistical and based on loose money and underestimation of inflation.
seems to me that if we were really growing as gdp claims, there would be more jobs being created.
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