Monster U.S. online jobs index stumbles in December

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A monthly gauge of online labor demand in the United States slid in December, suggesting job conditions worsened with the economy stuck in a recession, a private employment group said on Thursday.

Monster Worldwide Inc, an online careers and recruiting firm, said its employment index fell to 131 points last month from 143 in November. The December reading is down 22 percent from 169 a year ago.

Online job availability has fallen as employers have drastically pared payrolls to cut costs in the current business downturn, according to Monster.

"Although some of the decline can be attributed to end-of-year seasonality...the latest results indicate that conditions in the labor market continue to deteriorate," said Jesse Harriott, a senior vice president at Monster.

The Monster Employment index is a monthly analysis based on a selection of corporate career sites and job boards. The margin of error is approximately plus or minus 1 percent.

Online job demand in real estate, rental and leasing industry slipped to their lowest levels since Monster began tracking online job data in October 2003.

Online job openings in all top 28 metro markets fell in December, with Pittsburgh posting a whopping 37 point drop, according to Monster.

And only two of the 20 industry categories showed increases in online job availability, and one of the 23 job categories recorded a rise in December.

The Monster report followed the ADP National Employment report released earlier Wednesday, which showed a staggering loss of 693,000 jobs in the private sector in December.

On Thursday, the U.S. Labor Department will release its reading on weekly initial claims for jobless benefits at 8:30 a.m. The claims are expected to have jumped to 540,000 last week from 492,000 in the prior week, according to analysts recently polled by Reuters.

(Reporting by Richard Leong)