Online Labor Demand Rose 155,900 in June

Labor demand fluctuated in the first six months of 2014 but remained basically flat

Since last June, labor demand is down for professional workers but up for service/production workers

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Jul 02, 2014, 10:00 ET

NEW YORK, July 2, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Online advertised vacancies were up 155,900 to 5,060,100 in June, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine® (HWOL) Data Series, released today. The May Supply/Demand rate stands at 2 unemployed for each vacancy, with a total of 4.9 million more unemployed workers than the number of advertised vacancies. The number of unemployed was 9.8 million in May.

"The June increase of 155,900 is positive news. However, the net effect is that labor demand was basically flat for the first six months of 2014," said June Shelp, Vice President at The Conference Board. "There is churn in the labor market as people change jobs. Most of the gains since last June were in the lower-paying service jobs, not the higher-paying professional jobs."

Since June 2013, advertised vacancies for professional jobs dropped by almost 80,000 while service/production jobs gained a total of 170,000 vacancies. Since last June, employer demand has been down for the higher-paying professional jobs (where the average pay ranges from $34/hour to $53/hour). Professional occupations like managers (-8,300), business and finance workers (-11,200), and even computer workers (-51,000) all dropped. In contrast, lower-paying jobs (where the pay ranges from just over $10/hour to $20/hour) gained. Transportation workers (+73,000), office support (+42,100), production workers (+19,300), and construction (+19,300) all rose.

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

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