November 26, 2003



The Conference Board's Help-Wanted Advertising Index – a key barometer of
America's job market – was 37 in October, unchanged from the previous month.
The Index was 40 a year ago.

In the last three months, help-wanted advertising declined in seven of the nine
U.S. regions. Steepest declines occurred in the Mountain (-10.4%), Middle
Atlantic (-9.3%) and South Atlantic (-7.0%) regions.

Says Conference Board Economist Ken Goldstein: “Employers are in a
wait-and-see mode when it comes to hiring. Although consumers continue to feel
that jobs are hard to get right now, they do expect the job climate to improve
over the next six months. Leading indicator data are also in-line with trends
in consumer confidence and job advertising. The Coincident Economic Index (the
best economic measure of where we are) started to improve in May and continued
to advance through October. The Leading Economic Index now suggests the economy
will continue rising into early 2004. But overall, job advertising volume is
not moving up yet, awaiting more positive news.�

The Conference Board surveys help-wanted advertising volume in 51 major
newspapers across the country every month. Because ad volume has proven to be
sensitive to labor market conditions, this measure provides an important gauge
of change in the local, regional and national supply of jobs.