Online Labor Demand down 150,200 in May

- May drop brings average lost to 29,600/month for the first five months of 2013

- Labor demand over the year remains nearly unchanged for many professional occupations

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Jun 05, 2013, 10:00 ET

NEW YORK, June 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Online advertised vacancies fell 150,200, or 3 percent, in May to 4,827,600 in The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine® (HWOL) Data Series released today. In the first five months of 2013 labor demand has dropped an average of 29,600 per month. The Supply/Demand rate stands at 2.3 unemployed for each vacancy. In April there were 6.7 million more unemployed than the number of advertised vacancies, down from 11.9 million at the end of the recession in June 2009.

"The upward trend in labor demand since the end of the recession seems to have stalled in 2013," said June Shelp, Vice President of The Conference Board. "The 2013 levels for labor demand are still well above the pre-recession high of April 2007, but the small 2013 pullback of 29,000 per month in labor demand indicates that the national economy is still not out of the woods."

Many of the professional occupations (management, computers, business and finance) were weak in 2013. A few bright spots included gains for production and construction workers and a surprisingly large rise (up 29 percent so far in 2013) for workers in legal occupations.

For more information, including press release and technical notes:
http://www.conference-board.org/data/helpwantedonline.cfm.

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