The Conference Board is offering another contribution to U.S. economic data: a count of want-ads posted on Internet job boards. The report, funded by CareerBuilder.com, is similar in concept and design to rival Monster.com's monthly job-board count. Job boards offer a rich new ground of labor information.

Finding each other
Finding the right person with the right qualifications is always a challenge, especially when economic growth is accelerating. Word of mouth is usually the first avenue -through chats, emails and phone calls. If you're at a big company, you're likely to post the opening on the company's job board (typically listed on the homepage under "careers"). If nothing comes up and if you're in a hurry, you'll probably decide to pay a fee for a traditional ad in the newspaper - and/or a fee for an ad on a second-party job board, such as CareerBuilder or Monster.

The Conference Board's tally counts new advertisements at about 1,200 job boards (company job boards are not part of the count). Total count each month is enormous - in the low single digit millions! Tracking software assembles the data, culling out duplicates, breaking down categories and adding up totals. Ken Goldstein, who heads the survey for the Conference Board, then analyzes the results for readers.

Goldstein stresses the effort so far is developmental, yet he believes the report can add depth to other labor market indicators: weekly jobless claims, Challenger's layoff count, and another data series that Goldstein heads, the Conference Board's help-wanted newspaper index. He is especially keen about the new report's geographic breakdowns that separate data by cities. He believes a dramatic employment change in a single city can spill out to surrounding cities, surrounding states, then the whole nation. Goldstein's data will be useful in tracking regional labor changes following Katrina.

Note that help-wanted indexes in theory offer leading, not current, information on job growth. Openings now posted may not be filled for months, as candidates must be gathered and interviewed and as job offers are made and considered.

Job boards and the Katrina effect
Message boards proved a key means for lost family and friends to find one another following the hurricane. How much employers, in rebuilding, will use job boards to find new employees is still unknown. The Conference Board's latest tally, released on Tuesday, was for the month of August and showed no significant impact from Katrina. Monster.com's report for September, to be released Thursday, Oct. 6, the day before the Labor Department's monthly report, will offer regional breakdowns, which may in fact prove interesting (note city-by-city breakdowns won't be available until mid-month).

The Conference Board's new measure is only a few months old, which doesn't offer much for a graph. The data are also not seasonally adjusted. At least several years of data will have to be accumulated before seasonal factors can be calculated. Monster's index goes back a little further but it too is not seasonally adjusted. Still, the graph below shows that Monster's index matches well with growth in actual payrolls as reported by the Labor Department.

Bottom line
The Internet, already a chapter in history, is still bringing about sweeping changes in communication, culture, business, and the jobs market. Job-board counts are certain to become an important tool for forecasters and investors. Look for the Conference Board's new index at mid-month each month at www.conference-board.org.

Mark Pender, Contributing Editor, Econoday