Online advertised vacancies decreased 104,500 to 5,361,900 in April, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine® (HWOL) Data Series, released today. The March Supply/Demand rate stands at 1.57 unemployed for each advertised vacancy, with a total of 3.1 million more unemployed workers than the number of advertised vacancies. The number of unemployed was 8.6 million in March.

"After 8 years, the US Supply/Demand (S/D) rate is now back to its pre-recession best in March 2007," said Gad Levanon, Managing Director, Macroeconomic and Labor Market Research. "The Great Recession had taken the US S/D rate to a high of about 5.0 in April 2009 (nearly 5 unemployed competing for each ad). This month's S/D rate shows a little over 1.5 unemployed competing for each ad." The S/D recession/recovery impacts by occupational groups are profiled in Table D (see technical notes).

The significant drop in the US S/D rate has been helped by very strong employer demand, ranging from 4 to 5 million ads each month over the past 4 years, making it easier for the recession's 15 million unemployed to find employment opportunities. With the recession's unemployment numbers finally down significantly, the continued high employer demand at 5 million ads per month will make the job search for new entrants into the labor market much easier.