January’s jobs report from the Department of Labor is scheduled to be released later this week and based on data released this morning by LinkUp, Friday’s report will show that the job market improved sharply during the month. LinkUp, a job search engine that indexes jobs from over 20,000 company websites throughout the U.S., reported that new job listings on company websites rose by 69,082 (18%) from December. Total job listings on company websites in LinkUp’s search engine increased by 34,525 (4%). This is in sharp contrast to LinkUp’s dismal December report in which new and total job listings plummeted by 24% and 17% respectively.

Increases in job listings were widespread throughout the country, with 44 states (45 including Washington, D.C.) reporting more new job openings on company websites than the previous month and only 6 states reporting declines in new job listings. Total job listings on company websites rose in 43 states (44 including Washington, D.C.), with only 7 states reporting decreases in January.

LinkUp, the fastest growing job search engine on the web, indexes job listings from over 20,000 corporate and employer websites throughout the country. Because the index is updated daily and only includes job listings that are found on career portals within company websites, the completely unique jobs data is extremely reliable. There are no jobs from recruiters, headhunters, search firms, or staffing companies, and no scam jobs, phishing jobs, ‘money mule’ ads, or other fraudulent postings.

And because LinkUp only indexes jobs from a single source – the hiring company itself – there are no duplicate listings that pollute job board aggregator sites such as Indeed and Simplyhired. Perhaps most importantly given the current high-unemployment environment in which companies are not compelled to advertise as aggressively in order to generate candidate flow for their openings, the jobs data is not based upon paid help-wanted advertising activity.

In terms of the best and worst performing states, Texas, Florida, and Virginia showed the largest increases in new job listings, while California, Massachusetts, and Tennessee reported the largest declines in new job listings.