Job Vacancies On The Rise

Online-advertised job vacancies increased by 169,000, or about 5 percent, in August, according to the Conference Board.

Since April, online job demand is up by 300,000 and appears to be stable following two years of losses that began in May 2007. States that showed particularly strong gains in August were California, Texas, Florida and New York.

Texas showed the largest increase, about 21,000. Advertised vacancies increased by 7,500 in Massachusetts.

The job demand numbers go along with the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index, which also showed improvement in August. Taken together, the two surveys indicate that jobs are becoming easier to find. However, the board cautioned that the gap between the number of unemployed Americans and the number of advertised vacancies is about 11 million.