US Online Job Market up 0.5% in August. Job Market likely to weaken.

There was not much movement in the US online job market in August. Employers remained undecided about the direction they want to go. The monthly average of job openings increased slightly (up 0.5%) in August as compared to July. The online labor demand was 13.2% higher than in August of last year.

United States Job Openings (Online Postings)

January 2007 - August 2011

The weekly picture tells more of a story. During the first two weeks of August, employers kept adding job openings increasing labor demand slowly (week-over-week change was 0.5% in each week). This changed during the third week when inventories began to decline (down 0.3%). In week 4 the decline accelerated (down 1.3%).

United States Job Openings (Online Postings)

Weekly, 2010 - 2011

The declining labor demand maybe a result weak economic development. Employers will add jobs when they feel they cannot keep up with consumer demand for their products and services.

Note: A weekly update on the United States Job Openings (Online Postings) is available on the SkillPROOF blog every Tuesday.

Legend for week-over-week change of labor demand:

flat	0%
slow	0.1% - 0.5%
moderate	0.6% - 1.5%
fast	> 1.5%

Methodology: SkillPROOF surveys the inventories of job openings at direct employers. Job openings are counted and verified every 24 hours. All data sources have been verified for timely removal of filled or closed positions. No data from job boards or search firms is included.

For this report SkillPROOF estimates the counts of job openings. Estimates are calculated directly from SkillPROOF's actual daily counts of job openings. As part of its calculations, SkillPROOF uses data and findings from reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (http://www.bls.gov).

Comment by Henning Seip on August 31, 2011 at 8:54am: Update from ADP: Employment in the U.S. nonfarm private business sector rose 91,000 from July to August on a seasonally adjusted basis. Details at ADP National Employment Report .

Comment by Henning Seip on September 2, 2011 at 7:31am: Update from Monster: Monster Employment Index U.S. Rises 8% Year-over-Year; Edges up 2% Month-over-Month. http://www.about-monster.com/sites/default/files/employment-index/M...

Comment by Henning Seip on September 2, 2011 at 8:46am: Update from BLS: Payroll employment unchanged (0) in August; unemployment rate holds at 9.1%. http://www.bls.gov

Comment by Suresh on September 2, 2011 at 10:08am: Thanks for posting.

The positive info here is that we are half way there, from 1.5 million job postings in 2009 to 2.5 million now. We were at 3.5 million in 2007. Will we ever get to 3.5 million or higher is the unknown at this point.

Comment by Henning Seip on September 2, 2011 at 10:15am: Suresh, that's a good question. I believe we will get back to 2007 levels but not in the short term. The US is a consumer driven economy. The American people won't spend money (they either pay off debt or they are worried about their job and save their money). The government cannot spend money due to the political climate. If nobody buys stuff employers don't need to hire people.

Comment by Suresh on September 2, 2011 at 10:26am: Kind of inline with another data that is half way there is the North American Auto Sales numbers:

2007 - 17 million

2009 - 9 million

2011 - 13 million projected

Comment by Henning Seip on September 6, 2011 at 8:39am: Update: US Online Job Market, September Week 1: Down 0.6%. http://www.skillproof.com/?p=1730

Comment by Henning Seip on September 13, 2011 at 3:50pm: Update: US Online Job Market, September Week 2: Up 0.3%. Employers remain uncertain about direction of the economy. http://www.skillproof.com/?p=1751

Comment by Henning Seip on September 20, 2011 at 10:18am: Update: US Online Job Market, September Week 3: Up 0.4%. The US job market continued to slowly expand last week. http://www.skillproof.com/?p=1766

Comment by Henning Seip on September 27, 2011 at 11:25am: US Online Job Market, September, Week 4: Down 0.5%. September labor demand lower than August. http://www.skillproof.com/?p=1782

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