NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 1, 2003--The New York Times Job Market Confidence Index dropped 4.1 points to 92.1 in June from 96.2 in May. The Confidence Index measures the perceptions of employers and job seekers of the job market in the greater New York metropolitan area.

June's Current Conditions measure of the Index, which looks at respondents' perceptions of the current state of the job market, dropped to 107.4 in June from 117.7 in May. The Expectations measure of the Index, which considers respondents' expectations concerning the future of the job market in six months, dropped to 90.3 in June from 91.4 in May. For these results, February 2002 served as the base month, with values equal to 100.0.

"There appears to be some pullback from the slow steady growth trend we witnessed over the previous few months," said Carl Haacke, economist for The New York Times Job Market Confidence Index. "The key question in the coming months will be to determine if this pullback reflects a dip along the way to continued improvement or a more significant reversal of the trend."

    Key findings for June include:

    --  Employers are seeing increased slack in their workforce, with
        12 percent in June reporting that they have too many employees
        to handle their current workload compared to 10 percent in
        May.

    --  The percentage of employers who say they have vacancies they
        are trying to fill dropped to 41 percent in June from 46
        percent in May.

    --  Employers also see the future as more uncertain, with 54
        percent of employers in June saying they expect to hire in six
        months, down from 58 percent in May.

    --  Employees are reporting growing concern about layoffs, with 36
        percent saying in June that they think it is very or fairly
        likely that they will be laid off, up from 29 percent in May.

For the June results, 502 hiring managers and 307 job seekers were interviewed. Interviews are conducted via telephone with random samples of job seekers and hiring managers in the New York metropolitan area. The survey results for each month include responses obtained over the previous two-month period.

About Job Market

Job Market, the print and online recruitment services offering of The New York Times, provides employers and job seekers with comprehensive resources to streamline the recruitment process. Job Market appears in The New York Times every Sunday and is updated throughout the week at NYTimes.com, where job seekers can find job listings, career-related Times articles, exhaustive company research, a resume database and valuable career resources.

Through the newspaper's national audience, which includes 5.0 million weekday readers and 5.5 million Sunday readers as well as the 1.2 million readers who visit NYTimes.com every day, The New York Times Job Market reaches a marketplace of high-quality professionals actively seeking new job opportunities or considering career moves. Each week, The New York Times Job Market issues research on industry trends and workplace practices affecting employers and job seekers in the metropolitan New York region. On a monthly basis, The New York Times Job Market releases its Job Market Confidence Index. The Index tracks current conditions for recruitment in the New York metro area as well as future outlook for the coming six months. Copies of Job Market research reports are available upon request or at NYTimes.com/jobmarket. New York-based Beta Research Corporation, via random telephone interviews, independently conducts The New York Times Job Market research.

NOTE: Job Market research is not affiliated with the editorial operations of The New York Times newspaper and does not reflect the views of the newspaper or its journalists. Source all references to Job Market research as: The New York Times Job Market.

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CONTACT: The New York Times Company Diane McNulty, 212/556-5244; E-mail: mcnuldc@nytimes.com Al Leach, 212/556-4483; E-mail: promo8@nytimes.com This press release can be downloaded from www.nytco.com and www.nytco.com-community SOURCE: The New York Times Company