The Conference Board Reports Online Job Demand Down 100,000 in March

Job demand drops 100,000 in March after dipping only 6,600 in February.

February and March losses slow significantly from the sharp 1 million loss in
December and January.

Historical data for May 2005 through July 2007 have been revised.

Outlook: March's numbers are evidence that the downturn in the labor market
has not reversed yet.

NEW YORK, March 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Online advertised vacancies dropped 100,000
to 3,248,000 in March, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online
Data Series (HWOL)(TM) released today. The March loss follows sharp drops of
507,000 in December and 506,000 in January and a very modest dip of 6,600 in
February. This has resulted in a decline of over 1,120,000 advertised
vacancies, or over 25 percent, in the last four months.

"The March numbers indicate that we are not at the bottom of the employment
cycle but that the declines in labor demand may be slowing," said Gad Levanon,
Senior Economist at The Conference Board. "The March decline is significant
but substantially less than the 500,000 monthly drops we were seeing in
December and January. When the Federal employment numbers are released this
Friday, we still expect a very large drop and last month's gap of 9 million
between labor demand (HWOL) and supply (unemployment) will widen further."

"The next two months, April and May, are when employers typically ratchet up
their spring hiring, and these months will be a good indication of whether
labor demand is beginning to turn around," Levanon noted. In March, there were
slightly over 2 advertised vacancies for every 100 people in the labor force
compared to slightly over 3 vacancies per 100 in March 2008.

REGIONAL/STATE HIGHLIGHTS

Advertised vacancies up in 16 of the 50 States in March.

No State has a favorable Supply/Demand rate (fewer unemployed persons than
advertised vacancies).

The national picture continued to be negative in March with online labor
demand declining in all four regions. However, there are some brighter areas
in the South and Midwest including Florida, Minnesota, and Michigan, where the
number of advertised vacancies was up over the month. All of the most
populous states in the West and Northeast posted decreases, as did many of the
most populous states in the South and half of those in the Midwest.

The 14,400 drop in the South reflected a mixture of declines in states like
Texas and Virginia, which more than offset increases in other states like
Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia. Texas posted the largest March
decline (-16,500). Virginia was next (-8,700) and was followed by Maryland
(-4,500). North Carolina continued its downward trend with a modest decline
of 1,200. Other populous states in the South posted gains: 8,900 in Florida
and a modest 400 in Georgia. Smaller states like Tennessee (up 1,100) and West
Virginia (up 1,200) also posted gains in March.

Among the larger states in the Northeast region, New York posted the largest
decrease in labor demand (-14,600). Massachusetts posted the next largest
decrease (-8,900) and was followed by Pennsylvania (-8,600) and New Jersey
(-1,100).

In the West, California and Arizona have shown downward trends since Summer
2007 and also posted declines in March -- California -19,800 and Arizona
-2,400. Labor demand in Washington and Colorado began to turn down in Summer
2008 and was down 8,900 and 1,900 respectively in March.

In the Midwest region, Michigan continued its February gain with a March
increase of 2,100. Minnesota posted a gain of 1,400. Missouri continued its
decline (-700 in March). Wisconsin dropped 3,500. Illinois, which had
increased by 4,400 in February, dropped 6,000. Ohio, which had gained a
modest 300 in February, gained 700 in March.

Among the states with smaller populations, states with modest declines in
March were Vermont (-200), Oregon (-400), Montana (-600), Mississippi (-700),
North Dakota (-800) and Wyoming (-800).

The downward trend in employer demand coupled with the monthly increases in
unemployment is creating a widening gap in the supply/demand balance in most
States and making it increasingly difficult for the unemployed to find jobs.
The Supply/Demand rate for the U.S. has been increasing and in February (the
latest month for which unemployment numbers are available) was at 3.72, up
from 3.46 in January, or close to 4 unemployed for every online advertised
vacancy.

The highest Supply/Demand rate is in Michigan (8.37), or over 8 unemployed
people for every advertised vacancy. Other states where there are over 5
unemployed for every advertised vacancy include Indiana (6.70), Kentucky
(6.66), Mississippi (6.58), North Carolina (6.46), South Carolina (5.74), Ohio
(5.61), Florida (5.59) and Tennessee (5.59).

It should be noted that the Supply/Demand rates only provide a measure of
relative tightness of the individual State labor markets and does not suggest
that the occupations of the unemployed directly align with the occupations of
the advertised vacancies (see Occupational Highlights section).

OCCUPATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

Labor demand down over 30 percent from year ago levels for a wide range of
occupations.

Job demand is hard hit in Management; Office & Administrative Support;
Computer & Mathematical Jobs; Business & Finance; and Architecture &
Engineering.

Online job demand for Healthcare Support occupations shows strength with
modest increase of 5,000.

The widespread nature of the downturn in the economy remains evident in the
large number of occupations where online advertised vacancies in March were 30
percent or more below levels in March 2008. The list of occupations
experiencing severe declines in labor demand included both high-paying
occupations like Management where wages average over $46.00/hour to
lower-paying occupations like Office & Administrative Support at $15.00/hour.

In March, there were 365,500 online advertised vacancies for management
positions -- a decline of 173,000, 32 percent from last March's level. Demand
for office and administrative support positions dropped 172,000 to 309,200 and
was 36 percent below the March 2008 level. Computer and mathematical job ads
were down 158,800 to 381,300 over the same period. Other categories showing
severe declines included business & finance (-83,600), architecture and
engineering (-70,800), and healthcare practitioners and technical (-57,200).

In the healthcare field, job demand for healthcare support workers was up
slightly (5,000) to 94,700.

METRO AREA HIGHLIGHTS

50 of top 52 Metro areas post over-the-year declines in job demand in March.

Oklahoma City labor demand up 1,200 over last year's levels, and Honolulu
gains 1,100 advertised vacancies.

In March, 50 of the 52 metropolitan areas for which data are reported
separately posted declines in the number of online advertised vacancies from
last March. Honolulu with 10,400 ads was well above levels of last year (12.6
percent), and Oklahoma City, with 16,500, gained 1,200 ads compared to last
year. The New York metro area, while continuing to post the largest number of
advertised vacancies (176,400), had 125,500 fewer ads than in March 2008.
Washington, D.C., with the next highest number of advertised vacancies, was
down 26,400. Los Angeles, next in line, was down 66,700.

In no metro area did the number of advertised vacancies exceed the number of
unemployed. On the other hand, metro areas in which the respective number of
unemployed is substantially above the number of online advertised vacancies
are Riverside, CA, where there are over 13 unemployed people for every
advertised vacancy (13.4), Detroit (11.4), Sacramento (5.9), Providence (5.8),
Los Angeles (5.7), Louisville (5.6), Portland (5.6), Tampa (5.5) and Miami
(5.5). Supply/Demand rate data are for January 2009, the latest month for
which unemployment data for local areas are available.

Note: Revision to Historical Data
Historical data for May 2005 through July 2007 have been revised to
incorporate an improved Standard Occupational Coding (SOC) methodology;
revised data for August 2007 forward had been released earlier. With the
completion of the SOC coding update for the full historical series, testing
has now started for the production of seasonally adjusted occupational time
series data for Table 7 of the HWOL press release.
PROGRAM NOTES

The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series(TM) measures the number of
new, first-time online jobs and jobs reposted from the previous month on more
than 1,200 major Internet job boards and smaller job boards that serve niche
markets and smaller geographic areas.

Like The Conference Board's long-running Help-Wanted Advertising Index of
print ads (which was published for over 55 years and discontinued in July 2008
and continues to be available for research), the new online series is not a
direct measure of job vacancies. The level of ads in both print and online may
change for reasons not related to overall job demand.

With the October 1, 2008 release, HWOL began providing seasonally adjusted
data for the U.S., the 9 Census regions and 50 States. This data series, for
which the earliest data is May 2005, continues to publish not seasonally
adjusted data for 52 large metropolitan areas and occupations. It is The
Conference Board's intent to provide seasonally adjusted data for both large
metro areas and occupations in the future.

People using this data are urged to review the information on the database and
methodology available on The Conference Board website and contact the
economists listed at the top of this release with questions and comments.
Background information and technical notes on this new series are available
at: http://www.conference-board.org/economics/helpwantedOnline.cfm.

The underlying data for this series is provided by Wanted Technologies
Corporation. Additional information on the Bureau of Labor Statistics data
used in this release can be found on the BLS website, www.bls.gov.

The Conference Board
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diversity, executive compensation and corporate citizenship. Our conference
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year to share insights and learn from each other. Visit The Conference Board's
website at www.conference-board.org.

WANTED Technologies Corporation.
WANTED is a leading supplier of real-time sales and business intelligence
solutions for the media classified and recruitment industries. Using its
proprietary On-Demand data mining, lead generation and CRM (Customer
Relationship Management) integrated technologies, WANTED aggregates real-time
data from thousands of online job boards, real estate and newspaper sites, as
well as corporate Web sites on a daily basis.

WANTED's data is used to optimize sales and to implement marketing strategies
within the classified ad departments of major media organizations, as well as
by staffing firms, advertising agencies and human resources specialists. For
more information, please visit: http://www.wantedtech.com.

SOURCE The Conference Board

Frank Tortorici, +1-212-339-0231, or Gad Levanon, +1-212-339-0317, or June
Shelp, +1-212-339-0369