New Jobs Posted Online Fall Again in September

With the economy unstable, employers are less likely to create new jobs. As profits decrease, many businesses have to put aside increasing their payrolls in order to continue to stay above water. Because of this, the number of new jobs posted online fell in September, according to The Conference Board, a nonprofit business membership organization and research center, most recent Help-Wanted Online Data Series (HWOL) report.

Nationwide, the number of new jobs posted online dropped by 216,000 last month to 4,418,000 unique ads. The most recent decrease in employment opportunities continued to follow the trend that started in May of 2007.

"All in all, indications are that employment will deteriorate even more rapidly in the near term," said Gad Levanon, who is the Senior Economist at The Conference Board. "The current HWOL data indicates that labor demand was down in September even before the tumultuous events in the financial sector during the end of the month."

Levanon went on to say that there is a close correlation between employers need for new workers and unemployment.

"As demand drops, unemployment will rise as it becomes more difficult for the unemployed to find jobs," he said.

Since May of last year, The Conference Board has noted that the difference between the portion of the population that is unemployed and the number of new jobs advertised online has increased significantly. Currently there is approximately 2 unemployed workers for every help-wanted ad placed on the Internet.

Many times the loss new job announcements occurs in one or another of the Census regions, however, in September, it happened almost universally across the board. The larger states, of course, experienced a greater loss because they had a larger number of jobs to start with. Texas, which saw the biggest decrease, fell by 30,300 new jobs. California, New York and Pennsylvania followed suit.

Despite the decrease of new jobs posted on the Internet, there is still a significant demand for talent for higher paying occupations. As of now, these positions make up around 60 percent of the employment announcements online. The problem with this is that the individuals trained for such jobs only make up approximately 20 percent of the portion of the population that is currently unemployed.