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* July volume of online vacancies reflects impact of July 4th holiday

* Labor demand remains high and unemployment low in many areas across the US -- Salt Lake City, UT; Austin, TX; Phoenix, AZ; and Richmond, VA -- to name a few

NEW YORK, July 30 /PRNewswire/ -- In July there were 4,084,200 online advertised vacancies, a largely seasonal decline of 196,200 or 4.6 percent from the June level, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series(TM) (HWOL) released today. Online advertised vacancies continue to be up substantially (20%) over the year (July'06-July'07). There were 2.65 advertised vacancies online for every 100 persons in the labor force in July.

"The monthly decline in July in large part reflects the July 4th holiday week when ad volume dropped," said Gad Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board. "Online job demand is running well above last year's level, indicating that the national labor market continues to hold up, but looking at The Conference Board Leading Economic Indicators, point to a little loss in momentum over the next few months. With the typical lagged response of the labor market, we may well see a moderation in national employment growth in the second half of the year while some of the hot local markets continue to show high ad rates and low unemployment."

The National Picture

In July, 2,609,300 or 64% of the 4,084,200 unduplicated online advertised vacancies were new ads that did not appear in June, while the remainder were reposted ads from the previous month. During July, both total and new ads declined by 5 percent from the previous month. Over the year (July'06 - July'07) total ads and new ads rose 20 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

The July figures reported in the Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series(TM) reflect the sum of the number of unduplicated online job ads for each day from mid-June to mid-July and include the week of the July 4th holiday. This new series, which includes data from April 2005, does not have sufficient history to allow for seasonally adjusted monthly data.

In July, the number of online job ads declined in all of the 9 Census regions. The largest monthly decline was in the Middle Atlantic region (down 8%). Except for the New England region which dipped 0.2%, over the year July'06-July'07 the other 8 Census regions posted double-digit gains with the largest increases in the Mountain (30%), West North Central (30%) and West South Central (38%) regions.

Program Notes

The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series(TM) measures the number of new, first-time online jobs and jobs reposted from the previous month on more than 1,200 major Internet job boards and smaller job boards that serve niche markets and smaller geographic areas.

Like The Conference Board's long running Help-Wanted Advertising Index of print ads (which has been published since 1951), the new online series is not a direct measure of job vacancies. The level of ads in both print and online may change for reasons not related to overall job demand.

The Conference Board, as a standard practice with new data series, considers the estimates in The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series(TM) to be developmental. As a not-for-profit business research organization, The Conference Board is publishing the early years of this series for use by the media, analysts, researchers and the business community. Persons using this data are urged to review the information on the database and methodology available on our website and contact the economists listed at the top of this release with questions and comments.

Background information and technical notes on this new series are available at: http://www.conference-board.org/economics/helpwantedOnline.cfm. The underlying data for this series is provided by Wanted Technologies Corporation. CareerBuilder.com provides financial support for the series.

Additional information on the Bureau of Labor Statistics data used in this release can be found on the BLS website, www.bls.gov.

The Conference Board

Non-partisan and not-for-profit, The Conference Board is the world's leading business membership and research organization. The Conference Board produces The Consumer Confidence Index and the Leading Economic Indicators for the U.S. and other major nations. These barometers can have a major impact on the financial markets. The Conference Board also produces a wide range of authoritative reports on corporate governance and ethics, human resources and diversity, executive compensation and corporate citizenship. Our conference and council programs bring together more than 10,000 senior executives each year to share insights and learn from each other. Visit The Conference Board's award-winning website at www.conference-board.org.

CareerBuilder.com

CareerBuilder.com is the nation's largest online job site with more than 20 million unique visitors and over 1 million jobs. The company offers a vast online and print network to help job seekers connect with employers. CareerBuilder.com powers the career centers for more than 550 partners that include 165 newspapers and leading portals such as MSN and America Online. For more information about CareerBuilder.com products and services, visit http://www.careerbuilder.com/.

WANTED Technologies Corporation.

WANTED is a leading supplier of real-time sales and business intelligence solutions for the media classified and recruitment industries. Using its proprietary On-Demand data mining, lead generation and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) integrated technologies, WANTED aggregates real-time data from thousands of online job boards, real estate and newspaper sites, as well as corporate Web sites on a daily basis.

WANTED's data is used to optimize sales and to implement marketing strategies within the classified ad departments of major media organizations, as well as by staffing firms, advertising agencies and human resources specialists. For more information, please visit: www.wantedtech.com.

Source: The Conference Board

CONTACT: Frank Tortorici, +1-212-339-0231, Gad Levanon, +1-212-339-0317,
or June Shelp, +1-212-339-0369, all of The Conference Board

Web site:

http://www.conference-board.org/
http://www.conference-board.org/economics/helpwantedOnline.cfm
http://www.bls.gov/
http://www.careerbuilder.com/
http://www.wantedtech.com/

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Profile: Media News