From the ERE Network by John Zappe Sep 28, 2009, 4:40 pm ET

Online job listings took a hit in September, dropping by 101,800 from the August count.

The job posting data released today by The Conference Board suggests that the U.S. recovery is as tepid as economists fear.

"While the trend has been modestly upward and averaged 40,000 per
month over the last five months, the labor market continues to have a
hard time gaining momentum," said Gad Levanon, senior economist at The
Conference Board. "The Conference Board Employment Trends Index,
which has been basically flat for three straight months, also helps
highlight the difficulty the labor market is facing. With a growing
consensus of a weak recovery, businesses seem to be slow to boost
advertising for vacant or new positions."

The Conference Board and its data partner, Wanted Technologies,
survey some 1,200 online job boards counting all the unduplicated jobs
and comparing them to the jobs listed the month before to come up with
both a total online job count as well as a new job  count. For
September there were 3.363 million jobs listed; 2.018 million were new.

Despite
the drop, there were still 67,000 more jobs advertised online in
September than two months earlier, thanks to a big jump in postings in
August. The listings increased by 169,000 in August, the second biggest
increase in the year. (In May, listings increased by 199,000.)

Regionally, there were more jobs advertised in the South than
elsewhere in the nation. There 1.215 million jobs were online, a drop
of 45,400.

As might be expected, healthcare job openings continued to outpace
other occupations. In the Healthcare Practioner and Technical category,
some 28,000 listings were added. Every other occupational category
listed by The Conference Board saw a drop.

The Conference Board's monthly Help-Wanted Online Data Series is the
earliest of the monthly reports detailing the condition of employment
in the U.S.  The Monster Employment Index will be released on Thursday and Friday the much-watched Employment Situation Summary (better known as the unemployment rate) from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics will be announced.