“Employers are in a wait-and-see mode when it comes to hiring"
Ken Goldstein
Conference Board Economist

The Conference Board's Help-Wanted Advertising Index – a key barometer of America's job market – was 37 in October, unchanged from the previous month. The Index was 40 a year ago.

In the last three months, help-wanted advertising declined in seven of the nine U.S. regions. Steepest declines occurred in the Mountain (-10.4%), Middle Atlantic (-9.3%) and South Atlantic (-7.0%) regions.

Says Conference Board Economist Ken Goldstein: “Employers are in a wait-and-see mode when it comes to hiring. Although consumers continue to feel that jobs are hard to get right now, they do expect the job climate to improve over the next six months. Leading indicator data are also in-line with trends in consumer confidence and job advertising. The Coincident Economic Index (the best economic measure of where we are) started to improve in May and continued to advance through October. The Leading Economic Index now suggests the economy will continue rising into early 2004. But overall, job advertising volume is not moving up yet, awaiting more positive news.”

The Conference Board surveys help-wanted advertising volume in 51 major newspapers across the country every month. Because ad volume has proven to be sensitive to labor market conditions, this measure provides an important gauge of change in the local, regional and national supply of jobs.

The next release will be Tuesday, December 30, at 10:00 a.m. ET.