Hiring Demand for IT workers remained on trend in November, according to data from WANTED Analytics which tracks the number of online job ads on over 1,500 employment websites. On a seasonally adjusted basis, IT Hiring Demand is up 0.5%.
The end of November usually marks the start of a two month seasonal hiring slowdown. We were in fact expecting the number of job ads to fall slightly on a seasonally unadjusted basis, as shown in the graph below.
Source: WANTED Analytics
National Hiring Demand has been growing at a rate of 2.1% a month since March of this year according to data from WANTED Analytics, which tracks the number of online job ads on over 1,000 job boards. 'Hiring Demand' is the most timely and analytically flexible measure of what's traditionally labeled Labor Demand. Hiring Demand leads published labor market data such as Unemployment Insurance Claims (2 weeks) and Nonfarm Employment (4 months).
Before the recession, National Hiring Demand grew at an average rate of 0.7% per month. Recent growth is three times faster than that. This allows us to change our outlook from "stable" to "positive".
Several industry segments are performing strongly. These include Retail Sales; Food; Transportation; Production; Education; and Healthcare.
Most occupations that were hit by the 2007 real estate/sub-prime mortgage crisis are still under-performing the rest of the economy, however. These include Architecture/Engineering; and Construction.
Hiring Demand for upper-level Management has not caught up either, although demand for their underlings has. Indeed, Hiring Demand for most "office jobs" has been gaining ground since March, including Business/Finance; Office/Admin Support; and Computer/Math. Once enough of these workers are hired and the economic outlook remains positive for long enough, Hiring Demand for Management Occupations will catch up.
The labor market situation over the past 4 years can be divvied up into three parts:
The choice of March as the beginning of the recovery period is based on the stock market bull rally which started on March 9th, 2009.
The following table summarizes trends in Hiring Demand (average monthly growth rates), over these three periods, for all 23 major Standard Occupation Codes as defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, sorting descending on the most recent growth rates.
| SOC CODE | SOC DESCRIPTION | OCT 2005 to DEC 2007 26 months | JAN 2008 to FEB 2009 14 months | MARCH 2009 to NOV 2009 9 months |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 000000 | All Occupations | 0.7% | -3.5% | 2.1% |
| 270000 | Arts / Design / Entertainment / Media | 1.1% | -4.1% | 7.7% |
| 350000 | Food Preparation and Serving | 0.8% | -6.4% | 7.5% |
| 530000 | Transportation / Material Moving | -0.5% | -5.3% | 5.8% |
| 410000 | Sales | 0.3% | -3.2% | 5.5% |
| 550000 | Military Specific | 1.9% | 0.0% | 4.1% |
| 130000 | Business / Financial | -0.5% | -4.0% | 3.6% |
| 190000 | Life / Physical / Social Science | 0.9% | -3.1% | 3.1% |
| 490000 | Installation / Maintenance / Repair | 0.1% | -6.0% | 2.9% |
| 210000 | Community / Social Services | 0.4% | -4.1% | 2.8% |
| 510000 | Production | 0.3% | -6.3% | 2.8% |
| 150000 | Computer / Mathematical | 1.2% | -2.2% | 2.7% |
| 430000 | Office / Administrative Support | -0.2% | -4.6% | 2.6% |
| 250000 | Education / Training / Library | 1.7% | -3.7% | 2.5% |
| 310000 | Healthcare Support | 2.1% | -1.4% | 2.1% |
| 230000 | Legal | 0.5% | -5.9% | 1.5% |
| 290000 | Healthcare Practitioners and Technical | 2.4% | -2.1% | 0.4% |
| 110000 | Management | 0.6% | -4.1% | 0.1% |
| 170000 | Architecture / Engineering | 0.8% | -3.7% | -0.2% |
| 330000 | Protective Service | 2.1% | -4.1% | -0.5% |
| 370000 | Building Maintenance / Grounds Cleaning | 0.6% | -7.9% | -1.3% |
| 390000 | Personal Care / Service | 0.1% | -5.5% | -2.0% |
| 450000 | Farming / Fishing / Forestry | 0.5% | -4.4% | -2.1% |
| 470000 | Construction / Extraction | -1.4% | -7.9% | -2.8% |
It's important to note that rises in National Hiring Demand and continued drops in Nonfarm Employment are not mutually exclusive. As we've mentioned before, two factors affect changes in employment: Job Hires and Job Exits. Job Hires can continue to grow, but if there are fewer Hires than Exits, we have not yet passed the "replacement level threshold".
Hiring Demand for "Computer and Mathematical Occupations" grew by 6.5% in October on a seasonally unadjusted basis according to data from WANTED Analytics 2.0. This confirms the positive trend we saw begin in June, when Hiring Demand starting growing at an average monthly rate of 4.9%. This positive trend has affected most US metro areas.
WANTED Analytics tracks the number of online job ads on over 1,000 employment websites:
Source: WANTED Analytics
IT Hiring Demand grew faster than the rest of the economy – national Hiring Demand, all Occupations considered, grew by 4.0% over the same period. Removing the positive effect that IT workers had on the national average, national Hiring Demand grew by only 3.3%. (In other words, IT occupations contributed 0.7% to the overall growth in national Hiring Demand).
The table below details changes in Hiring Demand by occupation. Occupations are defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and their Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) System. Five occupations saw increases in Hiring Demand, while three saw drops. Drops were concentrated in "Computer Software Engineers", both "Applications" and "Systems Software".
| SOC | SOC Description | Percent Change, OCT (NSA) |
|---|---|---|
| 000000 | All Occupations | 4.0% |
| 150000 | Computer and Mathematical Occupations | 6.5% |
| 151071 | Network and Computer Systems Administrators | 9.5% |
| 151021 | Computer Programmers | 9.1% |
| 151061 | Database Administrators | 7.9% |
| 151081 | Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts | 7.7% |
| 151041 | Computer Support Specialists | 5.7% |
| 151051 | Computer Systems Analysts | -1.2% |
| 151031 | Computer Software Engineers, Applications | -5.9% |
| 151032 | Computer Software Engineers, Systems Software | -27.0% |
What's more, IT Hiring Demand is growing faster now than it did during the "boom times" of 2006/2007. The following table and weekly time series chart, where the count of online job ads is taken as a natural log to facilitate trending analysis, clearly shows this:
| Period | Monthly Growth Rate |
|---|---|
| Oct.2006 – June 2008 | +1.2% |
| July 2008 – May 2009 | -6.5% |
| June 2009 – Current | +4.9% |
Hiring Demand picked up 0.25% in September on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to data from WANTED Analytics, which tracks the number of online job ads on over 1,000 employment websites.
There were 1,108,000 new online job ads in September compared to the 1,105,000 new online job ads posted in August. This improvement of 3,000 new online job ads comes despite the fact that September seasonal factors usually drive down the number of new online job ads.
Source: WANTED Analytics
This improvement comes after a shaky August, where we saw a drop of 0.8% in the level of online job ads on a seasonally adjusted basis.
Hiring Demand for Computer and Mathematical Occupations has improved 1.1% over the past month, according to data from WANTED Analytics.
There are still 117,000 fewer online job ads for Computer and Mathematical workers compared to a year ago – a drop of 38.7%. However, a month ago, the year-over-year decline stood at 39.8%. This relative improvement of 1.1% is a simple way of controlling for seasonal fluctuations. Over the same period, National Hiring Demand for all occupations improved by 2.9%.
Source: WANTED Analytics
The following double-bar chart compares September's year-over-year drop (burgundy) to August's (gray). Burgundy bars that are shorter than gray ones indicate relative improvement since last month. The chart can be enlarged by clicking on it.
Click chart to view full size
Several occupations are worth noting.
US National Hiring Demand slipped by 0.8% in August, after some gains in July, according to data from WANTED Analytics.
Last month, Hiring Demand was down 26.4% on a year-over-year basis. This month, Hiring Demand is down 27.2% on a year-over-year basis. Looking at the relative drop of 0.8% on a year-over-year basis is a simple way to control for typical seasonal fluctuations.
There were 44,000 fewer new job ads in August compared to July, on a seasonally unadjusted basis.
Source: WANTED Analytics
The following double bar chart compares year-over-year percent changes in August and July. Burgundy columns (August) that are "shorter" than the gray columns (July) signal relative improvements. Hiring Demand is down from last year for almost all occupations, with the exception of "Healthcare Support Occupations".
Click chart to view full size
Hiring Demand for Information Technology workers has dropped 2.3% since mid-July, according to data from WANTED Analytics. This fall occurs after an upswing started in the spring. National Hiring Demand dropped 0.7% over the same period.
Source: WANTED Analytics
The following bar chart compares the year-over-year percent changes from July 2009 to those in August 2009. Burgundy columns extending past the gray columns means that there are sharper year-over-year losses compared to last month.
All IT occupations have lost more ground than the national average.
Click chart to view full size
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 for IT Occupations slipped 5.7% on a year-over-year basis compared to last month. Nine of the ten IT occupations classified by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed decline.
Compared to last year, Hiring Demand for IT occupations is down 35.7%. It was down only 30% last month. "Network Systems and Data Communications Analysts", which had been relatively spared so far, saw the largest relative drop in Hiring Demand, falling 9% to -18.2% compared to a year ago.
Click chart to view full size
Last month we reported that National Hiring Demand was improving in relative terms – year-over-year percent changes improved from -32.6% in April 2009 to -28.4% in May of 2009. Hiring Demand has slipped slightly since last month, with year-over-year percentage changes moving from -27.2% in May to -30.1% in June. (Slight revisions to data cause minor variations in Hiring Demand percent changes when compared to previously published results).
This month's slippage is particularly due to a robust month of May – on a seasonally adjusted basis May's Hiring Demand was up 10% compared to April. Because of May's increase in Hiring Demand, in combination with improving month-over-month declines in Nonfarm Payroll Employment (the revised drop for May was -322,000, whereas April's final number was -519,000), WANTED had forecast an optimistic drop of 260,000 in Nonfarm Payroll Employment. Despite the slight slippage this month, Hiring Demand has moved from "being flat" to starting to show signs of a possible uptrend.
The two time-series charts of new online job ads, one weekly series and one monthly series, show that since the drop off in December, Hiring Demand has been slowly inching up. (Usually the series "bounces back" in January, but, given the recession, new job ads did not come back to the previous calendar year's level.) This corresponds to slightly improving UI claims data and slowing in the month-over-month drops in US Employment.
Source: WANTED Analytics 2.0
All Entries