CSBJ Daily

Online job vacancies have dropped for the second consecutive year.

Analysts from The Conference Board report that vacancies dropped 16.4 percent during April from the same time a year earlier, the second consecutive year of declines for the nation as a whole.

In April, there were 2.4 advertised vacancies posted online for every 100 people in the labor force, down from a high of 2.9 during April 2007.

Even for the six states that posted gains, the pace of growth has slowed, analysts said.

“The weakness in online advertised vacancies evident over the last few months deepened in April, and hiring is likely to continue to be lackluster into summer,” said Gad Levanon, economist at The Conference Board. “April is a month when we normally see employers increasing their recruitment, but this year it actually declined.”

Job seekers are continuing to see a large number of advertised vacancies in Alaska, Nevada and Massachusetts. Ad volume dropped in California, Texas and New York. There were more job-seekers than advertised vacancies in Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Mississippi.