NU Online News Service, March 30, 12:56 p.m.EDT

Advertised vacancies in March for jobs in the business andfinancial operations sector declined by 83,600 on a not seasonallyadjusted basis from the March 2008 level, according to a reportreleased today.

The findings were released by the New York-based ConferenceBoard, a not-for-profit business membership and researchorganization, as part of The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnlineData Series.

According to the board, on a seasonally adjusted basis, onlineadvertised vacancies dropped 100,000 to 3,248,000 this March.

Labor demand overall, the organization said, is down more than30 percent from year-ago levels for a wide range of occupations inaddition to business and finance. It said other hard hit sectorswere management, office and administrative support, computer andmathematical jobs, and architectural and engineering.

"The list of occupations experiencing severe declines in labordemand included both high-paying occupations like management wherewages average over $46 an hour to lower-paying occupations likeoffice and administrative support at $15 an hour.

Gad Levanon, senior economist at The Conference Board said, "TheMarch numbers indicate that we are not at the bottom of theemployment cycle but that the declines in labor demand may beslowing.

"The March decline is significant but substantially less thanthe 500,000 monthly drops we were seeing in December and January.When the federal employment numbers are released this Friday, westill expect a very large drop and last month's gap of nine millionbetween labor demand (HWOL) and supply (unemployment) will widenfurther."

He added that April and May, when businesses generally increasetheir hiring, will be a good indication whether labor demand isbeginning to turn around.

Mr. Levanon noted that in March, there were slightly over twoadvertised vacancies for every 100 people in the labor forcecompared to slightly over three vacancies per 100 in March2008.

The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series measures thenumber of new, first-time online jobs and jobs reposted from theprevious month on more than 1,200 major Internet job boards andsmaller job boards that serve niche markets and smaller geographicareas.