Conference Board Help-Wanted Advertising Index Dip

New York, NY, June 28, 2007–The Conference Board Help-Wanted Advertising Index — a key measure of job offerings in major newspapers across America — dipped two points in May. The Index now stands at 27. It was 33 one year ago.

In the last three months, help-wanted advertising declined in six of the nine U.S. regions. Largest declines occurred in the East South Central (-41.1%), Pacific (-22.7%) and West North Central (-19.3%) regions. Increases occurred in the West South Central (8.0%), New England (6.4%) and Middle Atlantic (2.3%) regions.

Says Ken Goldstein, labor economist at The Conference Board: “The labor market is slow and might even slow a little further this summer. While the Leading Economic Indicators are pointing to sustained but slow growth in business activity, the latest readings on want-ad volume suggest that job gains (hovering close to about 120,000 per month) could edge a little lower, perhaps opening up only 100,000 new jobs a month.”

Total online job ads were 4,374,400 in May, an increase of 9,000 or 0.2 percent from April, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series. There were 2.9 advertised vacancies online for every 100 persons in the labor force in May.