By Juli Morris on May 22, 2009 in BLS Nonfarm Employment.

WANTED Technologies' Hiring Demand Indicators show that the levels of hiring demand for May remain stable with prior months, a sign that although employment conditions are not improving, at least for now they are not getting worse.  WANTED expects the Bureau of Labor Statistics will report a loss of 565,000 jobs for May.

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The loss estimated for May would be the third consecutive month that WANTED has forecast job losses less severe than the prior month. (Because of the size of prior month revisions–particularly for January 2009–released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, some uncertainty remains in the estimates, pending the BLS' release of its Final Estimate for March 2009.)

Update:  The consensus estimate from Thomson/Reuters predicts a decline of 530,000 jobs for May in the June 5th BLS Employment Situation report; TrimTabs Investment Research, Inc. forecasts job losses of 579,000.

Nonetheless, WANTED's measures of year-over-year demand for new employees by employers has remained relatively stable for the last five months, although at very weak levels.

Drilling down into industry groups, WANTED is predicting a loss 33,100 jobs in Transportation and Warehousing, and a gain of 26,200 jobs in Health Care.

In addition, WANTED expects the BLS to report a loss of 32,000 jobs in Finance and Insurance. Within sub-groups of that industry, WANTED forecasts a drop of 14,000 jobs in credit intermediation and related services (NAICS 522);  a decline of 5,400 jobs in securities and commodities jobs (NAICS 523) and a loss of 5,800 positions with insurance carriers  (NAICS 524).

WANTED's estimates are based on a model that incorporates its own hiring demand data (some 6 million job ads per week) with data supplied by government agencies and other leading researchers.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to release its Employment Situation report for May on the morning of Friday, June 5.  WANTED is releasing its forecast prior to the consensus estimate of economists reported by news services such as Thomson/Reuters and Bloomberg.

Further details on forecasts from WANTED and others are available on our BLS Forecast page.

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