Online advertised vacancies increased 74,000 to 4,797,000 in December, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine Data Series. The November Supply/Demand rate stands at 1.57 unemployed for each advertised vacancy with a total of 2.7 million more unemployed workers than the number of advertised vacancies. The number of unemployed was approximately 7.4 million in November.

"The HWOL series ended 2016 on a positive note, with a 74,000 increase," said Gad Levanon, Chief Economist, North America, at The Conference Board. "The number of online job ads has been fluctuating around a steady trend in the second half of 2016."

The Professional occupational category saw small losses in Management (-0.8), Business/Finance (-0.1), and gains in Computer/Math (8.7) and Health (10.6). The Services/Production occupational category saw gains in most occupational groups led by Sales (14.6) and Office/Admin (21.3).