The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine^® (HWOL)

Online Labor Demand up 204,300 in April

01 May. 2013

Online Labor Demand up 204,300 in April

• April rise offsets losses in February and March, leaving labor demand unchanged in 2013
• Metro areas show resilience with 24 of the 52 largest metro areas having fewer than 2 unemployed for every advertised vacancy (Table B, p. 4)
• Note: Revision to occupational levels for June 2012 forward (see p. 6)

Download the National Historical Table. 

Online advertised vacancies rose 204,300 in April to 5,103,100 in The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine® (HWOL) Data Series released today. The gain offsets earlier losses, leaving labor demand flat in 2013. The Supply/Demand rate stands at 2.4 unemployed for each vacancy. In March, there were 6.8 million more unemployed than the number of advertised vacancies, down from 11.9 million at the end of the recession in June 2009.

“For many workers looking for a new job, 2013 has been somewhat disappointing with the number of advertised vacancies in April largely unchanged from January,” said June Shelp, Vice President at The Conference Board. “The 204,000 rise in April is a good sign, but the question is: Will the improvement hold next month and will employers begin to add workers instead of just replacing those who leave?”

In the professional occupations, the only substantial rise in demand was for legal workers, up 35 percent since January, after having languishing in the early recovery years. The 2013 results in the service/manufacturing occupations are mixed with manufacturing stalling and sales workers and food service openings slumping. The bright note in this category is the building trades (construction and installation, maintenance and repair), which continue to post gains (Table 7, page 15).

The release schedule, national historic table and technical notes to this series are available on The Conference Board website,
http://www.conference-board.org/data/helpwantedonline.cfm. The historical series for States and the 52 largest MSA is available from Haver Analytics. The underlying data for The Conference Board HWOL is collected by Wanted Technologies Corporation.

REGIONAL AND STATE HIGHLIGHTS

• April gains across the four major regions of the US
• 44 of the 50 States and 18 of the 20 largest States all increased in April

April Changes for States

In April, online labor demand rose in 44 of the 50 States in the U.S. (Table 3). States that decreased were Montana, Maryland, New Jersey, West Virginia, Utah, and Kentucky. Over eighty percent (41 of the 50 States) are above last year’s April levels.

The largest gain in online labor demand was in the West, up 70,400 in April with almost half of the increase, 32,200, in California. Arizona gained 17,400 and reached the highest level in its HWOL series. Washington rose 8,800 while Colorado gained 1,200. Among the smaller Western States, Oregon gained 3,400 in April and Nevada rose 1,700. Utah fell 300 (Table 3).

Online labor demand in the South rose 39,700 in April (Table A) with Texas experiencing the largest increase (10,700). Florida increased by 7,500; Georgia, by 4,300; Virginia, by 2,600; and North Carolina, by 2,100. Maryland dropped 1,000. Among the smaller States, Arkansas increased by 3,600; Louisiana, by 2,100; Tennessee, by 1,000; and South Carolina, by 500.

Online labor demand in the Midwest also rose 39,700 in April. Illinois posted the largest gain, 8,800. Wisconsin rose 6,900 to its all-time HWOL high. Minnesota was up 4,900. Missouri gained 3,400. Michigan increased by 3,000 and Ohio, by just 300. Among the smaller Midwest States in April, Indiana increased by 2,700; Kansas, by 2,400; and North Dakota, by 1,200.

Online labor demand in the Northeast increased by 20,900 in April with Pennsylvania up 8,200 to 211,900, its series high. Massachusetts and New York both gained 4,800, with the latter reaching its series high. New Jersey was down 700. Among the smaller States in the Northeast, April labor demand increased by 1,400 in Connecticut, 1,100 in New Hampshire, 700 in Rhode Island, and 300 in Maine (Table 3).

The Supply/Demand rates for the States are for March 2013, the latest month available for state unemployment data. The number of advertised vacancies exceeded the number of unemployed only in North Dakota, where the Supply/Demand rate was 0.66. The State with the highest Supply/Demand rate was Mississippi (5.31), where there were over five unemployed workers for each online advertised vacancy. Note that the Supply/Demand rate only provides a measure of relative tightness of the individual State labor markets and does not suggest that the occupations of the unemployed directly align with the occupations of the advertised vacancies.   

• April was a mixed month for metro areas, with 25 of the 52 largest metro areas posting increases in labor demand while 27 posted decreases
• Almost half of the largest metro areas (24) have supply/demand rates below 2, indicating that there are fewer than two unemployed workers for every online advertised vacancy

Metro Area Changes

In April, 10 of the 20 largest MSAs and 25 of the 52 metropolitan areas for which data are reported separately posted increases in the number of advertised vacancies (Table B and Table 5). Metro areas with April gains were located across the U.S. with Seattle –Tacoma up 4,300, Phoenix up 3,000, and San Jose up 700 in the West. In the other regions, the Boston metro area in the Northeast posted a gain of 700 advertised vacancies. In the South, vacancies were up by 3,200 in Atlanta, by1,500 in Houston, by 500 in Dallas, and by 300 in Miami. In the Midwest, Chicago gained 4,700 and Minneapolis–St. Paul rose 1,600. (Table B).

Twenty-four of the MSAs reported separately had Supply/Demand rates in February 2013 (the latest available data for unemployment) lower than 2, indicating there are fewer than two unemployed for every advertised vacancy (See Table 6). Washington, DC continues to have the most favorable Supply/Demand rate (1.04) with about one advertised vacancy for every unemployed worker. Minneapolis-St. Paul (1.15), Oklahoma City (1.18), Salt Lake City (1.22), Boston (1.31), Seattle–Tacoma (1.35), Austin (1.39), Columbus (1.41), San Jose (1.42), and Honolulu (1.49) had the next lowest Supply/Demand rates.

Metro areas in which the number of unemployed is substantially above the number of online advertised vacancies include Riverside, CA with over 6 unemployed workers for every advertised vacancy (6.18), Las Vegas (3.81), Sacramento (3.50), and Los Angeles (3.46). (See Table 6)

Since the end of the recession in June 2009, a number of the large metro areas have posted gains in labor demand above 100 percent. The most notable of these are Charlotte (up 141 percent), Minneapolis-St. Paul (up 141 percent), Portland (up 134 percent), Detroit (up 134 percent), Milwaukee (up 133 percent), Denver (up 133 percent), Cleveland (up 133 percent), Birmingham (up 130 percent), Nashville (up 128 percent), and Columbus (up 126 percent).

OCCUPATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

• 18 of the 22 major groups in the Standard Occupational Classifications (SOC) rose in April
• 4 of the 22 major SOC groups declined (Table C and Table 7)
• April increases included Healthcare and Management workers

Occupational Changes for the Month of April

In April, among the largest occupational groups, Healthcare Practitioners and Technical occupations rose 30,600 to 593,800, largely led by an increase in demand for Registered Nurses. Sales and Related occupations increased by 28,600 to 606,600, driven by increased demand for Retail Salespeople and First-Line Supervisors / Managers of Retail Sales Workers. Management occupations rose 21,500 to 496,400, largely due to higher demand for Food Service Managers, Marketing Managers, and Sales Managers. Business and Financial Operations occupations rose 12,000 to 322,200 due to higher demand for Personal Financial Advisors, Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists, and Accountants.

Office and Administrative Support occupations fell 7,600 to 518,100, driven largely by a decrease in demand for General Office Clerks (Table C). Legal rose 800 in April continuing its rise. In 2013 Legal was up 35 percent with increased demand for lawyers, paralegals, and legal assistants (Table 7).

PROGRAM NOTES

Correction to HWOL Occupational Levels

A processing error was identified that affected occupational levels for June 2012 forward. Approximately 2% of ads did not receive SOC codes in the February 2013 release of the HWOL annual revision; all HWOL data files have now been corrected.

HWOL is now available on Haver Analytics

Over 3,000 of the key HWOL press release time series are exclusively available on Haver Analytics. The available time series include the geographic and occupational series for levels and rates for both Total Ads and New Ads; in addition to the seasonally adjusted series, many of the unadjusted series are also available. The geographic detail includes: U.S., 9 Regions, 50 States, 52 MSAs (largest metro areas); the occupational detail includes: U.S. (2-digit SOC), States (1-digit SOC) and MSAs (1-digit SOC).

For more information about the Help Wanted OnLine database delivered via Haver Analytics, please email sales@haver.com or navigate to
http://www.haver.com/contact.html. For HWOL data for detailed geographic areas and occupations not in the press release, please contact
June.Shelp@conference-board.org or Jeanne.Shu@conference-board.org.

____________________________________________________________________________

The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine® Data Series (HWOL) measures the number of new, first-time online jobs and jobs reposted from the previous month for over 16,000 Internet job boards, corporate boards and smaller job sites that serve niche markets and smaller geographic areas.

Like The Conference Board’s long-running Help Wanted Advertising Index of print ads (which was published for over 55 years and discontinued in July 2008), the HWOL series measures help wanted advertising, i.e. labor demand.  The HWOL data series began in May 2005. With the September 2008 release, HWOL began providing seasonally adjusted data for the U.S., the nine Census regions and the 50 States. Seasonally adjusted data for occupations were provided beginning with the May 2009 release, and seasonally adjusted data for the 52 largest metropolitan areas began with the February 2012 release.

People using this data are urged to review the information on the database and methodology available on The Conference Board website and contact us with questions and comments. Background information and technical notes and discussion of revisions to the series are available at:
http://www.conference-board.org/data/helpwantedonline.cfm.

Additional information on the Bureau of Labor Statistics data used in this release can be found on the BLS website,
www.bls.gov.

The Conference Board

The Conference Board is a global, independent business membership and research association working in the public interest. Our mission is unique: To provide the world’s leading organizationswith the practical knowledge they need to improve their performance and better serve society. The Conference Board is a non-advocacy, not-for-profit entity holding 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt status in the United States.

WANTED Technologies Corporation

WANTED is a leading supplier of real-time business intelligence solutions for the talent marketplace. Using technology to gather data from corporate career sites and online job boards, WANTED builds products to help our users make better human capital decisions faster. Users of our products include corporate human resources departments, market analysts and employment services firms as well as the federal, state and local labor market analysts that use HWOL. For more information, please visit:
www.wantedanalytics.com.

HAVER ANALYTICS®

Haver Analytics is the premier provider of time series data for the Global Strategy and Research community. Haver Analytics was founded in 1978 as a consulting firm and today provides the highest quality data and software for industry professionals. Haver provides products and services to clients in financial services, government, academia and various industry groups from consulting to manufacturing. From more information please see:
http://www.haver.com/contact.html.

THE CONFERENCE BOARD HELP-WANTED ONLINE DATA SERIES™
Release Dates for 2013

June 5, 2013 (data for May 2013)
July 3, 2013 (data for Jun 2013)
July 31, 2013 (data for Jul 2013)
September 4, 2013 (data for Aug 2013)
October 2, 2013 (data for Sep 2013)
October 30, 2013 (data for Oct 2013)
December 4, 2013 (data for Nov 2013)

The next release is scheduled for Wednesday, June 5 at 10:00 AM ET.

For further information contact:

THESE DATA ARE FOR ANALYSIS PURPOSES ONLY. NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION, PUBLISHING, DATABASING, OR PUBLIC POSTING WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION.