Healthcare Online Job Ads Dip in February

Online job ads in many employment sectors across the nation dipped by nearly 67,000 listings in February and healthcare practitioners and technical occupations accounted for almost half of the decline, a new report shows.

The Conference Board's Help Wanted Online Data Series report, which tracks more than 1,000 online job boards across the United States, found that advertised vacancies for highly skilled healthcare practitioners and technical occupations, such as registered nurses and radiographic technologists, fell by 30,300 listings in February, for a total of 537,000.

Demand for healthcare support personal, such as dental assistants and home healthcare aides, also fell by 8,600 listing for the month, for a total of 110,700, the report shows.

"Contributing to this month's decline were fewer advertised vacancies for physical and occupational therapist assistants, mirroring the declines in the demand for practitioners in these areas," the report stated.

Demand in the healthcare labor market varies substantially from the higher-paying practitioner and technical jobs to the lower-paying support occupations. In January, advertised vacancies for healthcare practitioners or technical occupations outnumbered the unemployed looking for work in this field by more than 3 to 1, and the average wage in these occupations is $32.64/hour.

The average wage for healthcare support occupations is $12.66/hour and there were more than two unemployed people looking for work in the field for every advertised vacancy, the report said.

The dip of 66,900 online listings to 3.9 million in all job sectors in February follows an increase of almost 750,000 listings in the previous three-month period.

Recent declines in the number of unemployed coupled with the rise in the number of advertised vacancies has narrowed the gap between labor supply and labor demand by 1.5 million. In January, the latest month of unemployment numbers, there were 10.8 million or 3.69 unemployed for every online advertised vacancy, the report stated.

"Although labor demand dipped slightly, the large gains in the last few months have provided a positive sign of a turnaround in employer labor demand," said June Shelp, vice president at The Conference Board. "Currently, labor demand, as measured by online job postings, is close to the levels in November 2008, just prior to the huge losses from the financial crisis. The numbers indicate that the economy is recovering from the recession and companies are filling vacant positions, but it is still unclear if employers are willing to significantly expand their workforce."