Online advertised vacancies fell 79,200 to 5,174,700 in December, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine (HWOL) Data Series, released today. The November Supply/Demand rate stands at 1.73 unemployed for each advertised vacancy with a total of 3.9 million more unemployed workers than the number of advertised vacancies. The number of unemployed was 9.1 million in November.

"Labor demand in 2014 continued its steady growth pattern to new series highs," said Gad Levanon, Managing Director, Macroeconomic and Labor Market Research. "Online labor demand quickly rebounded from the recession and surpassed the pre-recession series high in early 2012. In the three years since then, the level of online labor demand has increased further by about 20 percent."

The sustained high level of employer labor demand has helped reduce the number of unemployed, with the U.S. Supply/Demand rate falling from a recession high of 5.2 in 2009 (over 5 unemployed for each available ad) to the current level of 1.7. During 2014, the Supply/Demand rate fell by over 20 percent as demand continued to increase and unemployment continued to fall. The Supply/Demand rates for most major occupational groups are now also about at pre-recession levels with the rates for Professional occupations now averaging 0.66 and Services/Production occupations averaging 2.33."