Simply Hired Releases Inaugural 2009 U.S. Job Trends Report

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Simply Hired® (Twitter: @SimplyHired) the largest job search engine and recruitment advertising network, today released its inaugural 2009 U.S. Job Trends report, outlining year-over-year (YOY) employment trends by metro region, state and industry. The report is based on Simply Hired’s extensive analysis of more than 3 million job listings from the first quarter of 2008 through the close of 2009.

“There is also evidence of an upswing in certain industries such as healthcare and government that may stand for a hopeful sign for growth in other commercial sectors.”

In this week’s State of the Union Address, President Obama called for job creation as the number-one focus of the American people in 2010. Following a year of widely reported layoffs and upticks in unemployment numbers, Simply Hired’s findings offer insight into industries and geographies with the most available positions and those that have yet to bounce back.

Simply Hired’s report outlines sectors in growth mode, including healthcare, which has impressive numbers across disciplines with unique jobs for Chiropractors up 43 percent; for Dental Assistants up 20 percent; and Massage Therapist positions are up an impressive 166 percent. Also, the financial industry, which suffered devastating job losses in 2008, appears to be on the rebound—with available positions for Loan Officers up 81 percent and Securities, Commodities and Financial Services Sales Agents up more than 40 percent by Q4 2009.

“This report confirms what many analysts, economists and the American people have been hoping for—job cuts have slowed and the free-fall state we were in 2008 is now behind us,” said Gautam Godhwani, co-founder and CEO at Simply Hired. “There is also evidence of an upswing in certain industries such as healthcare and government that may stand for a hopeful sign for growth in other commercial sectors.”

Other positive YOY findings by occupation include the following:

Teachers and Instructors—unique jobs up 389 percent
Detectives and Criminal Investigators—unique jobs up 276 percent
Fish and Game Wardens—unique jobs up 200 percent

On the flip side, some of the positions that experienced an extreme decrease in postings include:

Actors—unique jobs down 87 percent
Proofreaders and Copy Markers—unique jobs down 85 percent
Petroleum Engineers—unique jobs down 84 percent
Amusement and Recreation Attendants—unique jobs down 67 percent
Photographers—unique jobs down 63 percent

YOY findings of interest by geography include the following:

St Louis, Missouri takes the prize for being the only metro area that remained in the black, with more than nine percent more jobs available today than in 2008
California has 21 percent less jobs available overall, but remains strong with more than 400,000 available jobs today—the most of all the states
Virginia lost the least amount of jobs out of all the states, down just 12 percent over last year

For the complete findings, please view SimplyHired.com’s 2009 Job Trends report.

About Simply Hired

With more than five million job listings worldwide, Simply Hired (www.SimplyHired.com) is the world’s largest job search engine and recruitment advertising network. The company powers jobs on over 5,000 network partner sites such as LinkedIn, Plaxo, CNNMoney, BusinessWeek and The Washington Post. It operates global sites in 17 countries and nine languages on five continents including North America, South America, Europe and Asia. Simply Hired was the fastest growing job site in 2008 according to both ComScore and Nielsen Media. Simply Hired has been lauded as one of the “50 Coolest Websites” by Time magazine, a “Top 100 Website” by PC Magazine and the “Best of the Web” by BusinessWeek. Simply Hired has raised $22.3 million in funding from IDG Ventures SF, News Corporation’s Fox Interactive Media, Foundation Capital, Garage Technology Ventures and individual investors. The company is privately held and is based in Mountain View, California.