"All in all, the labor market is holding remarkably steady," said Gad Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board. "The March dip in advertised vacancies is entirely due to fewer days in the February-March reference period." Growth in the number of online job ads over the year continues to be in the double digits. "I would expect that the federal employment numbers scheduled for release later this week will show the same reasonable, but not spectacular, gains we've seen over the last few months," Levanon indicated.
THE NATIONAL PICTURE
The 3,754,400 unduplicated online advertised vacancies in March include 2,492,300 new ads that did not appear in February, as well as reposted ads from the previous months. During March, total ads decreased 2 percent and new ads were down 3 percent from the previous month. Over the year (March'06 - March'07) total ads and new ads rose 18 percent and 24 percent, respectively.
Monthly percent change declines were reflective of a shorter reference period with three fewer days than the previous month. The March figures reported in the Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series(TM) reflect the sum of the number of unduplicated online job ads for each day from mid-February to mid- March. This new series, which includes data from April 2005, does not have sufficient history to allow for seasonally adjusted monthly data.
The fastest year-over-year growth was in the mid-section of the country with the West South Central and West North Central regions up 33 percent and 31 percent, respectively. Across the nation, states with the largest over- the-year gains in advertised vacancies were Maine (+66 percent), Arkansas (+57 percent), North Dakota (+49 percent), and Missouri (+39 percent). Metropolitan areas with the fastest over-the-year growth were heavily concentrated in areas where labor markets were disrupted by the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes - Austin (+63 percent) and Houston (+54 percent).
