Jan. Help Wanted Index Down to 21 from 22 in Dec.
The Conference Board’s Help Wanted Index declined to 21 in Jan., as analysts had expected. The Index stood at 31 in Jan-07. Within the past 3 months, help-wanted advertising fell in 5 of 9 regions in the US, with noteworthy declines in the East South Central (-16.3%), Pacific (-12.2%), and South Atlantic (-5.3%) regions.
Conference Board Labor Economist Ken Goldstein pointed to falling consumer confidence and rising food, energy, and housing costs as discouraging signs for the US economy, saying “what’s important is that people are behaving as if a recession is already here.”
Goldstein is very pessimistic about prospects for the labor market, remarking there is no chance the market will improve in the coming months and there is even a possibility the labor market could grind to a halt.