Hiring Demand up 2.4% in July and Trending Upwards

By Charles Thibault on August 13, 2009 in Hiring Demand Indicators.

Hiring Demand improved 2.4% in July on a seasonally adjusted basis. There were 132,000 more new job ads in July, which now total 1,433,000.

With the exception of a three week period in June, Hiring Demand has been growing an average of 0.8% a week since March, or 3.6% a month for the past 4 months. This corresponds to the rally in the stock markets.

Improvements are spread across most sectors of the US economy. Seven of the top eight Metropolitan Areas improved, as did 19 of 23 broad Occupational groups covered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Four weeks ago, Hiring Demand was down 29.5% on a year-over-year basis. Hiring Demand is now down only 27.1% compared to last year. This relative improvement of 2.4% controls for seasonal fluctuations.

Source: WANTED Analytics

Hiring Demand is up 25.3% since last month in Washington as we detailed last week. In the Northeast, Hiring Demand is up 10% in Boston, 9% in New York, and 7% in Philadelphia. Across the rest of the United States, Hiring Demand is up 2.4% in Los Angeles, 1.9% in Atlanta, and 1.6% in Chicago. Only Dallas fell slightly, down 0.1%.

Source: WANTED Analytics

Hiring Demand has increased in most "business" occupations. Management Occupations are up 8.2%, Legal Occupations are up 6.6%, Business and Financial Occupations are up 4.1%, Sales Occupations are up 4.0%, Office and Administrative Occupations are up 3.2%, and Computer and Mathematical Occupations are up 2.3%.

Primary and secondary industries are also doing well. Production Occupations are up 5.0%, and Construction and Extraction Occupations are up 4.5%.

There are only two sore spots in the economy. Health Care Occupations are down 7.5%. Transportation is also down 6.2%. The Transportation industry lost 22,400 jobs in July, after having lost only 11,600 job in June.