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THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: JULY 2008. The unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent, and nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend down in July (-51,000), the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported. Employment continued to fall in construction, manufacturing, and several service-providing industries, while healthcare and mining continued to add jobs. Average hourly earnings rose by 6 cents, or 0.3 percent, over the month.

MONSTER ON THE MOVE
The folks at Monster Worldwide have been quite busy . . .
Monster posted Q2 revenue of $354 million and non-GAAP profits of 40 cents a share; the expectation had been $361 million and 37 cents.

The company has agreed to settle a securities class action pending in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York with shareholders for $47.5 Million over allegedly illegal option backdating. The settlement also requires Monster''s founder and former Chief Executive Officer Andrew McKelvey to personally pay $550,000 toward the settlement. The proposed settlement is still subject to court approval by U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the Southern District of New York and would be reportedly one of the five largest options backdating class action settlements in history.

Monster also announced it will buy Trovix Inc., a provider of employment search technologies, for $72.5 million in cash and will also acquire Armees.com, a French site target and the families of French military personnel. The company said neither acquisition would have a material impact on 2008 financial result.

Last, but certainly not least, Monster will back background screening services available to its customers through an agreement with employment screening specialists HireRight. The integrated solution is designed to provide Monster customers access to a range of background screening services, including criminal records checks, employment verifications, sex offender registry checks and motor vehicle records checks.

DATA
In July 2008, there were 3,864,100 online advertised job vacancies, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series. This is down 330,800 from June's level of 4,194,900 (revised), a decline that is larger than seasonally expected for this month. In July, job ads continued to run below year ago levels (220,100 or 5.4 percent below the July 2007 level). This is the fifth consecutive month of year-over-year declines for the nation as whole. In July, there were 2.5 advertised vacancies posted online for every 100 persons in the labor force, down from a high of 2.9 in May 2007. The monthly national decrease in advertised vacancies between June and July 2008 reflected declines in ads in all nine Census regions. Online advertised vacancies in six of the nine Census regions were below last year's July levels. The six regions with over-the-year declines were the New England, Middle Atlantic, South Atlantic, East North Central, Mountain, and Pacific regions.