- August posts strong increase following small loss in July
- Large gains for California, Michigan, Illinois, and Florida
Online advertised vacancies gained 164,600 to 5,209,200 in August, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine® (HWOL) Data Series released today. The July Supply/Demand rate stands at 1.9 unemployed for each advertised vacancy with a total of 4.6 million more unemployed workers than the number of advertised vacancies. The number of unemployed was 9.7 million in July.
"Labor demand has shown some renewed strength over the past three months with an average increase of 102,000 per month," said Gad Levanon, Director of Macroeconomics and Labor Markets at The Conference Board. "The 2014 gains through August are an improvement over the slower-paced gains of 2013 for the same time period."
In August the professional occupations continued to show improvements after earlier 2014 losses. Gains included Business and Finance (10,700), Computer and Math (19,300), and Healthcare (24,200). The Services/Production occupations also showed gains in Office and Administration (20,100), Sales (13,900), and Food Preparation (12,300)