Conference Board Report: Online Help-Wanted Inches Up

By: Mark Fitzgerald Online help-wanted advertising has been a disaster for newspapers in the last two year, pulling down digital revenue results with declines that some publishers reported were as high as 60% in the second quarter of this year.

But now the Conference Board is reporting that online job demand that has been basically flat at depressed levels since February inched up slightly in July.

More cheering for publishers in the South, which was hit especially hard by the employment downturn, is the board's finding that larger markets in the region are showing "modest strength." Unfortunately for newspapers in California and the West, that region continues to shows weak job demand.

Online advertised vacancies edged up by 700 to 3,295,500 in July, according to the non-profit business organization's Help-Wanted Online Data Series (HWOL) released this week.

That level is well below the 4.27 million advertised job openings posted in September of 2007. Online job advertisements plunged last December and this January to the current level of about 3.3 million, about 1.2 million below the monthly average of 4.5 million in 2008.

"While we are not seeing declines, the sluggish nature of labor demand is another indication that the path to recovery is likely to remain a long haul," Gad Levanon, senior economist at the Conference Board, said in a statement.

Southern states showing modest increases in job demand were Virginia, up 4,700 postings; Maryland, up 3,300; and North Carolina, up 1,400.

Florida continued to trend down in July, with 4,400 fewer online ads.

The Northeast also showed some strength, with an increase of 16,800 in New York and 6,800 in Pennsylvania.

Western states continued to trend down, led by California,which dipped 3,300.

For every online help-wanted advertisement, the board said, there are more than four unemployed persons competing for the opening. In some markets, though, the competition is more fierce. In Detroit, for instance, there are nearly 12 unemployed people for every advertised vacancy. In Riverside, Calif., more than 10 jobless people compete for each ad.