Help-wanted advertising declined in January.

Classified advertising levels in major U.S. newspapers were down 4.7% from December but were up from the year-earlier level, the Conference Board said in its monthly report. It said that ad volume fell from December’s level in every region of the nation except on the West Coast. Kenneth Goldstein, the Conference Board economist who prepared the report, said the hardest-hit areas were the “west north-central states and in the Mountain region,” where “difficulties faced by farm-machinery producers may be contributing to soft labor demand.”