US Online Job Market grows 7.1% in April 2012

The job market made a significant push in April. The average daily number of posted job openings grew 7.1%, a rate last seen in April 2010. The job market made up for the slow growth in March when employers barely increased their labor demand. Nevertheless, the current need for more labor has not yet reached last years peak. We will learn over the next 30 days whether employers remain optimistic and continue to post more openings. In order to exceed last years peak the current job market would need to grow another 2.8%.

United States Job Openings (Online Postings) and Unemployment Rate
January 2007 – April 2012

The first three weeks in April produced the current result for the month. Last week, growth of labor demand was minimal. Employers posted on average just 0.1% more job openings.

United States Job Openings (Online Postings)
Weekly, 2011-2012

Note: A weekly update on the United States Job Openings (Online Postings) is available on this blog every Tuesday.

Legend for week-over-week change of labor demand:

flat	0%
slow	0.1% – 0.5%
moderate	0.6% – 1.5%
fast	> 1.5%

Methodology:SkillPROOF surveys the inventories of job openings at direct employers. Job openings are counted and verified every 24 hours. All data sources have been verified for timely removal of filled or closed positions. No data from job boards or search firms is included.

For this report SkillPROOF estimates the counts of job openings. Estimates are calculated directly from SkillPROOF’s actual daily counts of job openings. As part of its calculations, SkillPROOF uses data and findings from reports of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (http://www.bls.gov).

Comment by Suresh on May 4, 2012 at 2:19pm: I suppose this is the disconnect between Job Openings vs New Jobs Added for April. Any thoughts?

Comment by Henning Seip on May 4, 2012 at 6:58pm: Suresh, the 115,000 added jobs in April are in line with the job openings. We have not reached the levels of job openings from last. In order to produce higher monthly payroll growth rates, the level of job openings has to approach the level we had in 2007. Yet we are still 30% below that. Compare the levels of job openings with payroll growth. Monthly payroll growth was between about 250,000 and 50,000. This is what we can expect going forward if job openings do not significantly increase.

Comment by Henning Seip on May 9, 2012 at 8:07am: Update: US Online Job Market, May 2012, Week 1: Up 0.2%. More: http://www.skillproof.com/?p=2275

Comment by Henning Seip on May 16, 2012 at 9:50am: Update: US Online Job Market, May 2012, Week 2: Labor Demand Stalls. More: http://www.skillproof.com/?p=2288

Comment by Henning Seip on May 22, 2012 at 8:04am: Update: US Online Job Market, May 2012, Week 3: Labor Demand down 0.5%

http://www.skillproof.com/?p=2299

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