The 2008 Kansas Job Vacancy Survey was designed to find what jobs are open and available for Kansas workers, where these jobs are located, what they pay and what education they require.

Kansas’ labor market is in high demand for workers.  The 2008 survey reported an estimated 46,584 job vacancies in Kansas during the second quarter of 2008. During the same time, Kansas averaged 61,981 unemployed workers, resulting in an average of 1.3 unemployed people for every job vacancy reported.

The statewide job vacancy rate was 3.5 percent, meaning there were 3.5 vacancies for every 100 filled positions. Southeast Kansas, also referred to as Local Area V, had the lowest job vacancy rate of 3.1 percent while Local Area IV, Sedgwick and surrounding counties, had the highest rate of 4.1 percent.  Nearly thirty percent of the total job vacancies in the state were located in Wyandotte, Leavenworth, and Johnson counties, which is Local Area III. See the map of the Local Areas.

The Education and Health Services industry reported the most job vacancies statewide, followed by Trade, Transportation and Utilities.  Together, these industry sectors accounted for 43 percent of all vacancies in the state.

The demand for workers was spread across most of the major occupational groups.  However, Healthcare Support and Healthcare Practitioners & Technical occupational groups consistently had high job vacancy rates in nearly all of the Local Areas.

The 2008 statistics reinforced the theory that earnings increase with the level of education. Vacant jobs that require a bachelor’s degree generally paid more than twice as much as those that require only a high school diploma or a GED. Vacancies requiring an advanced degree paid nearly two and one half times as much. Registered Nurses were consistently among the top ten occupations that require a bachelor’s degree and had more job vacancies than any other occupation. 

Local Area III reported the largest percentage of job vacancies. In this area, more than 20 percent of job vacancies require a bachelor’s or advanced degree.  Forty percent of the job vacancies in this Local Area paid at least $12.00 per hour, the largest percentage of vacancies in this pay range of all Local Areas.

The length of time a job has been open can be a measure of labor market dynamics. In professional, high-skilled or technical fields, where the average wage is competitive, a job that has been open for a longer period of time may indicate a shortage of qualified workers due to the required specialized education or training. Jobs labeled as “always open” could imply employers were having difficulty filling those positions or the occupations had high turnover rates.  This indicator also demonstrated healthcare-related occupations are in high demand.  Several healthcare-related occupations were consistently on the list of occupations that were “always open.”  Statewide, five of the top ten occupations on this list were healthcare-related.

The 2008 Kansas Job Vacancy Survey is a useful resource for policymakers, educational institutions, government agencies and anyone interested in Kansas workforce development.