"Although the Monster Employment Index experienced a mild decline in May, there are emerging signs of stability in the hiring market. The Index has remained within a four-point band since January and the annual pace of decline seems to have leveled off,” said Jesse Harriott, senior vice president and chief knowledge officer at Monster Worldwide. "While demand has eased across most sectors of the economy, industries such as education, retail and public administration are providing some bright spots."

In May, online job availability rose in three of the Index’s 20 industry sectors and four of the 23 occupational categories monitored. Index results for the past 13 months are as follows:

Some other highlights from the index include:

- Year-over-year growth rate held relatively steady, suggesting stabilization in employer demand for workers

- Online offerings fell across all major regions of the country and 19 of the 28 major metro markets in May

 Data from the European version of the Index will be released next Tuesday.

Big areas of growth in online job demand were the utilities industry (which registered the largest monthly increase), education, training, and library occupations, and healthcare. The biggest gains on a yearly scale, however, come with the public administration and agricultural industries. Farming, fishing and forestry had the sharpest decline for the month, while information, professional, scientific, and technical services saw the sharpest year-to-year decline.

"On the upside, the Index’s overall annual growth rate remained steady, suggesting no major change in underlying nationwide demand for labor compared to July," stated Jesse Harriott, Vice President of Research at Monster Worldwide.

The Index over the past year

While online job demand in all nine U.S. Census Bureau regions was down for the year, seven out of those nine saw growth over the month. The biggest growth came from the West North Central region. This is attributed to the aftermath of flooding. Online job demand increased in 40 states and the District of Columbia. At the city level, the Index monitors 28 U.S. metro areas. Eight of those saw an increase in online recruitment activity. Boston showed the biggest increase, and San Diego saw a nice one as well.

The Index has a ways to go before it reaches where it was a year ago, but this might be the beginning of an upward trend.

More Job Seekers Turning To The Internet

The report found that workers who looked for a job between January and September 2007, 73 percent said they had used the Internet compared to 66 percent of job seekers in the same time period in 2005.

"The Internet has become the most popular method of job searching," said Gad Levanon, Economist at The Conference Board. "Newspapers are still popular as a major job search method, but job seekers reported using them less, dropping from 75 percent to 65 percent between 2005 and 2007."

The majority of job seekers use more than one method in looking for a job. Online and print ads are still the most widely used method for searching for job openings. Fifty-one percent of job seekers said they networked through friends and co-workers as part of their job search. Twenty-four percent said they used other methods, such as employment agencies.

The report also found that the Internet is being used for a number of job search functions, 59 percent use it for finding employer/job information, 57 percent use the Internet for submitting resumes and applications and 40 percent use it to post resumes on a Web site.

In September 2007, there were 4,270,000 online advertised job vacancies according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted Online Data Series.

Online advertised job vacancies were up 20 percent over the year (July ’06-July ’07). There were 2.6 advertised vacancies online for every 100 persons in the labor force in July.

"The monthly decline in July in large part reflects the July 4thholiday 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."

In July, 2,609,300 or 64 percent of the 4,084,200 unduplicated online advertised vacancies were new ads that did not appear in June, while the rest were reposted ads. During July, both total and new ads fell by 5 percent from the previous month. Over the year total and new ads increased 20 percent.