Online advertised vacancies decreased 162,100 to 5,334,300 in February, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine Data Series, released today. The January Supply/Demand rate stands at 1.42 unemployed for each advertised vacancy with a total of 2.3 million more unemployed workers than the number of advertised vacancies. The number of unemployed was around 7.8 million in January.

"While 2015 showed slow positive growth averaging about 25,000 ads per month, the first two months of 2016 have shown weakness in labor demand," said Gad Levanon, Managing Director of Macroeconomic and Labor Market Research at The Conference Board. "The overall level of demand still remains high, but the very weak start of 2016 suggests a possible temporary weakening in employer demand for labor." 

In February, the Professional category saw a large gain in Management (11.2) but losses in Healthcare (-10.8) and Computer/Math (-12.5). The Services/Production category saw the largest February losses including: Office/Administration (-48.7), Transportation (-29.5), Installation/Maintenance (-12.4), Construction (-12.2), and Food (-12.0).