November 2009: Employment Activity by U.S. Region

After posting mixed results in recent months, the U.S. as a whole benefited from November's rebound, with each region posting at least a five point increase in job availability (with the exception of the Southwest, which rose by four points).

READING THE INDEX: The CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index measures all Index scores against a base year of 2007, where the number of job listings available online during each month of 2007 = 100 points. This means that a score that is < 100 indicates the number of job listings for a given month is less than during the same month in 2007, while a value > 100 means that more jobs are available than were during the same month in 2007.

Table of Job Posting Index scores by Region, Jan 2008 - November 2009:

Index Month	Northeast	Southeast	Midwest	Southwest	West
November 2009	84.5	74.7	68.2	77.7	69.5
October 2009	78.0	66.6	62.1	73.7	63.8
September 2009	75.6	69.1	65.1	75.4	64.5
August 2009	92.0	83.3	80.4	86.3	73.7
July 2009	87.5	80.3	72.4	88.1	75.0
June 2009	68.6	64.4	60.9	69.4	55.9
May 2009	67.0	61.8	53.1	66.9	51.7
April 2009	46.0	42.5	40.4	47.5	40.1
March 2009	48.1	45.8	39.0	51.6	45.2
February 2009	51.7	50.4	46.6	54.4	50.5
January 2009	66.0	58.5	56.6	70.8	62.6
December 2008	69.7	69.9	59.8	71.8	66.3
November 2008	81.1	76.8	72.7	81.6	78.3
October 2008	75.1	71.5	71.1	79.0	75.2
September 2008	87.0	82.9	86.8	97.8	93.3
August 2008	109.0	102.5	105.8	115.2	109.4
July 2008	106.6	96.4	107.7	111.1	96.3
June 2008	108.0	101.2	100.4	111.7	103.0
May 2008	100.0	97.2	92.2	103.8	97.0
April 2008	98.3	92.3	96.7	99.6	95.5
March 2008	115.2	113.1	108.3	119.3	107.7
February 2008	114.5	105.0	133.6	117.3	105.3
January 2008	101.2	94.6	103.3	113.5	100.3

While job availability in all regions of the U.S. improved in November, the West and Midwest still lag significantly behind the rest of the country. The Northeast, on the other hand, continued to widen its lead as the best region in America to find a new job, a position it established in July.

Looking at regional performance dating back to last year, there is still a long way to go before the job market reaches peak levels last seen in March, 2008. However, for the second month in a row, the Northeast posted a greater number of job openings than during the same time last year – something no other U.S. region has managed to achieve. Of course, in November, 2008 the current financial crisis was already underway, and hiring had slowed considerably from earlier in the year.