Online Labor Demand Up 244,700 in November

- November's rise was not enough to push 2013 into healthy positive territory

- Demand rose in November in 48 of the 50 States

- Based on Supply/Demand rates, available jobs now outnumber unemployed workers in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska

News provided by

The Conference Board

Dec 04, 2013, 10:00 ET

NEW YORK, Dec. 4, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Online advertised vacancies were up 244,700 in November to 5,171,500, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine® (HWOL) Data Series released today. The October Supply/Demand rate stands at 2.3 unemployed for each vacancy with a total of 6.3 million more unemployed workers than the number of advertised vacancies.

"The theme for labor demand this year is up-one-month and down-the-next," said June Shelp, Vice President of The Conference Board. "Eleven months into the year, we've seen six months up and five months down, with a net result of basically flat labor demand (a gain of fewer than 18,000 per month)." (See Charts 1& 2 below)

Since November 2012 employers' demand for labor has been cautious. While the overall demand for labor has hovered around 5 million this year, the largest numerical gains since last year are for sales workers (+101,000), transportation workers (+71,000), and food service workers (+54,000). The most striking pattern is that many of the high-wage professional occupations have very modest gains. Since last November, demand for computer and math occupations has risen just 6,100 while business and finance occupations are up 4,700. Over the same period, the gains for construction workers (up 8,100) and production/manufacturing workers (up 7,000) are in the middle of the pack with relatively modest gains.

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

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