Okay, here we are in March 2011 and the job market in the US has finally begun to expand again. After a promising start in 2010, activity was fairly lackluster during the second half of the year running up to the mid-term elections. When we entered 2011 employers did not increase their postings for the first two weeks and we thought the recession may come back (has it actually ended yet?). Then, towards the end of January things started to move and postings increased. It continued through February and ended with a 6.1% daily average increase compared to January. We estimate that there are currently 2.38 million job openings (advertised and not advertised) that require a resume as part of the job application. The chart shows the development over the past four years.

US Job Openings, March 2007 - February 2011

The increased labor demand should convert into additional payroll which we may hear from the BLS on Friday. Job postings can be a leading economic indicator.

The way we create the chart is by taking a daily sample of job postings from a fixed number of reliable websites which remove job postings of positions when they have been filled or closed. We bring into the equation estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (the BLS has the best labor data) and can then generate the chart. It is always interesting to compare this with ADP's National Employment Report (they'll publish tomorrow), Monster's Employment Index (they'll publish on Thursday) and the BLS Current Employment Statistics on Friday. While BLS and ADP report on payroll and not job openings, Monster provides a percentage change Month-over-Month and Year-over-Year.

Now, I am not a recruiter. I am a job market analyst interested to hear from the front lines. Do you feel business is picking up?