Health care jobs continue to lead the pack. There were over 138,000 job postings by staffing firms for the Health Care sector, followed by nearly 93,000 in Computer and Mathematical Occupations. Office and Administrative Support jobs were a distant third at just under 37,000.

Note that we do not include job postings on free job boards such as Craig's List.

The total ad volume by staffing firms in May was up 18 percent from May 2009, but remains below the March 2008 peak of 576,000. The growth in online job ads is corroborated by employment increases of 264,000 in the Employment Services industry, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Source: WANTED Analytics

© Copyright 2010 WANTED Technologies Corporation

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.

Source: WANTED Analytics

The chart below compares June (gray) and July Hiring Demand (maroon). Hiring Demand is still weaker than it was last year, but is improving.

Full-size chart available on Jobs. Trends. Insight.

© Copyright 2009 WANTED Technologies Corporation