Businesses hired at a faster rate in March than in the year earlier, according to a monthly jobs report from professional social networking site LinkedIn.

The number of people hired by Los Angeles companies was 2.2 percent higher last month than the same period a year earlier, though it slipped about a point from February levels. Nationally, year-over-year hiring was up 5.8 percent in March compared with the same period last year, and 0.9 percent lower than February.

Joseph Roualdes, manager of corporate communications at LinkedIn said the data was drawn from members on LinkedIn in Los Angeles who changed the name of their employer on their profile over the last month.

The report also found that the scarcest skills in Los Angeles are IT infrastructure and system management, followed by health care management, sales, HR, teaching, business development, nursing, and database management and software.

The most abundant skills include TV and video production, theater and drama, music production, graphic design, fashion, social media marketing, photography, real estate and home buying, and radio broadcasting.

New York sent the most workers to Los Angeles over the last 12 months, followed by Chicago and Boston. The region lost the most workers in the last year to the Bay Area, followed by Las Vegas and Seattle.

Residential real estate reporter Helen Zhao can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @zhaomeow.