Occupations – Jobs. Trends. Insight.

Finance, Health Care, IT Stocks Lose Momentum as Hiring Slows

By Charles Thibault on February 2, 2010 in Business/Finance, Computer/Math/IT, Finance - XLF, Health Care, Health Care - XLV, Information Technology - XLK, S&P 500 - SPY.

Several stock market industry segments have taken hits over the past two or three weeks as the labor market situation deteriorated slightly during the second half of January.

Health Care stocks are down 2.9% over the last two weeks (XLV); Information Technologies stocks are down 9.5% over the last three weeks (XLK); and Finance stocks are down 7% over the last three weeks (XLF). The 4-week moving average of new unemployment insurance claims has gone up two weeks in a row.

Hiring in these three sectors – Finance, Health Care, and Information Technologies – has slowed in the past two weeks too, falling off the positive trend they started in September. What's worse, year-over-year hiring improvements have swung from positive to negative in these sectors.

The following analysis confirms a great Q4 in terms of GDP growth (+5.7% annualized), but also suggests that growth rates are slowing.

Let's first take a second to make sure we're not presenting conflicting information about the labor market situation, particularly compared to the Conference Board's Help Wanted Online series which uses the "same" data as we present here (HWOL). That series uses a "mid-month to mid-month" time-frame in order to match the BLS's sampling framework which measures national employment on the 14th day of each month. In early January, we did see some positive labor market signals. However, national Hiring Demand fell by 3.7% two weeks ago (after the HWOL sampling period closed). Since January 19th, the S&P 500 index has lost 4.3% too. This is after the S&P 500 gained 3.6% during the first couple of weeks of January on positive December UI claims data.

The following table compares year-over-year changes in sector Hiring Demand (the number of new online job ads) and weekly returns of sector Exchange Traded Fund (ETF). Sector ETFs are tradable securities which mimic the composition and returns of the different sector indices developed by Standard & Poor's. Sector indices are sub-components of the S&P 500.

Source: WANTED Analytics, Google Finance

IT Hiring Demand Maintains Growth Trend; Washington, DC Surpasses New York

By Charles Thibault on December 10, 2009 in Computer/Math/IT, Hiring Demand Indicators.

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

Sales Jobs Growing 4.3% a Month – 15 Times Faster than before Recession

By Charles Thibault on November 11, 2009 in Sales.

Hiring Demand for Sales & Related Occupations has been growing 4.3% a month since February, according to data from WANTED Analytics. WANTED Analytics tracks the number of online job ads on over 1,000 employment websites.

This positive trend has affected most metropolitan areas and detailed occupations in the Sales category (BLS Standard Occupation Major Group 410000).

The "normal" monthly growth rate experienced during the 2006/2007/2008 pre-recession period was only 0.3%. In other words, Hiring Demand is growing at almost 15 times the rate it did during normal economic times. Most of this can be attributed to "catching up", however – about 950,000 people lost their jobs in the Retail Industry for example, a 6% drop in employment. There are still 30,000 fewer Sales job ads now than there were 2 years ago (136,000 in October compared to 169,000 in November 2007).

The following table and graph detail Hiring Demand trends over the past four years. The natural log of the number of online job ads is used to facilitate trending analysis

Period	"Sales Jobs, Monthly Growth Rate"
OCT 2006 – MAY 2008	+0.3%
JUNE 2008 – JAN 2009	-5.2%
FEB 2009 – Current	+4.3%

Source: WANTED Analytics

IT Hiring Demand Robust in October – Trending up 4.9% per Month (update)

By Charles Thibault on November 9, 2009 in Computer/Math/IT, Hiring Demand Indicators.

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%

Phoenix Great for Health Care Jobs, #1 in US for RN's

By Charles Thibault on November 3, 2009 in Health Care.

Phoenix, AZ is one of the best US markets for Health Care Practitioners, according to our Supply/Demand Ratios. What's more, Health Care workers are also "in-demand" in the Phoenix market. In other words, not only is Phoenix a great place for Health Care workers compared to other cities, but Health Care occupations also outrank other occupations within the Phoenix market.

Phoenix is ranked first in the US for Registered Nurses Hiring Demand (view our heat map and ranked market list for RN's). Registered Nurses are the second most important occupation in the United States (they carry an economic weight of $165 billion, second only to 'General and Operations Managers' who have an economic weight of $185 billion. 'Retail Salespersons' come in third at $110 billion). In August, Phoenix was ranked second after Las Vegas for RN Hiring Demand.

Remember that our Supply/Demand Ratios are constructed such that the number of online job ads is standardized against local occupational employment counts. (We'd expect larger markets to have more online job ads, so our S/D Ratios 'control' for market size).

Office and Administrative Support – Job Search Strategies

By Charles Thibault on October 26, 2009 in Office/Admin Support.

In a difficult labor market workers may have to "start at the bottom of the corporate ladder". Recent college grads that have yet to find work, for example, may have to lower their salary expectations and simply get their foot in the door, waiting for a better position to open up around them.

In this week's discussion of WANTED's Supply/Demand Ratios, we examine the best markets for Office and Administrative Support Workers to search for employment. Office/Admin Support jobs can represent good entry-level opportunities.

Remember that our S/D Ratios homepage also ranks occupations within a market, so that those not willing to move can see which occupations are in highest demand in their market (ex.Chicago, IL).

Top 20 Markets Hiring Computer Specialists

By Charles Thibault on October 13, 2009 in Computer/Math/IT.

In this week's Supply/Demand Ratio feature, we list the Top 20 US Markets hiring for "Computer Specialists".

Supply/Demand Ratios data are used to determine which markets have the most recruitment activity, relative to the quantity of qualified candidates already employed there. Each of the following IT workers can follow the hyperlink to produce a ranked list of cities with the most online job postings:

- Computer Programmers
- Computer Applications Engineers
- Systems Software Engineers
- Computer Systems Analysts
- Database Administrators
- Network Administrators
- Network Analysts

Combining the data from the occupations listed above, we can generate a composite list of the "Top 20" markets for IT workers. Metropolitan areas in the table below are ranked based on this composite index. All values in the table below are the city's national ranking – a value of 1 means that city displayed the most recruitment advertising nationally for that occupation:

Source: WANTED Supply/Demand Ratios

Finance Down 8,800 – September 2009 BLS Preliminary Report

By Juli Morris on October 2, 2009 in BLS Nonfarm Employment, Business/Finance.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics today reported a loss of 8,800 jobs in the Finance and Insurance sector for September, following a revised loss of 18,200 jobs reported by the BLS for August. Losses of 7,400 jobs in the Banking sector were the largest component of the overall employment decline.

Click chart to view full size

The Financial Services Hiring Demand Indicator–a measure of year-over-year change in online job advertising– rose for the fifth consecutive month, from -27 percent in August to -25 percent in September.

Health Care Up 19,200 – September 2009 BLS Preliminary Report

By Juli Morris on October 2, 2009 in BLS Nonfarm Employment, Health Care.

According to today's preliminary report by the BLS, the health care sector gained 19,200 jobs in September. While still a positive report, this is the fourth consecutive month of declining gains. WANTED Technologies' Hiring Demand Indicator (the yellow line in the chart below) for Health Care also showed another slight decline in September.

Click chart to view full size

The Health Care Hiring Demand Indicator–a measure of year-over-year change in online job advertising–showed a slight decrease this month, but remains flat since the strong uptick last quarter from -27 percent in April to -17 percent in May. The trend in Hiring Demand in Health Care had been moving steadily downward from a peak it reached in June 2007 prior to the onset of the recession in December 2007, reaching a bottom which appeared to occur in the first quarter of 2009.

For more charts, graphs and forecasts, visit our BLS Forecast page.

IT Hiring Demand Improves 1.1%

By Charles Thibault on September 29, 2009 in Computer/Math/IT, Hiring Demand Indicators.

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.

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