We regularly update this report to track the pandemic’s effects on the labor market. 

Job postings on Indeed are a real-time measure of labor market activity. On November 5, 2021, they were 51.4% above February 1, 2020, the pre-pandemic baseline, after adjusting for seasonal variation. Postings were up 1.8 percentage points in the past week.

Line graph titled “Job postings on Indeed, United States.”
Line graph titled “Job postings on Indeed, United States.” With a vertical axis ranging from -50% to 50%, Indeed tracked the percent change in job postings between February 1, 2020 and November 5, 2021. On November 5, 2021, job postings were 51.4% above February 1, 2020, the pre-pandemic baseline. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 10.4 million job openings at the end of August in its latest JOLTS report. Job postings on Indeed increased 7.9% between August 31 and November 5. If JOLTS openings have grown since August 31 at the same rate as Indeed job postings, that implies 11.2 million job openings as of November 5.

Lots of postings for HR and warehousing jobs

Job postings in all occupational sectors are above the pre-pandemic baseline, led by loading & stocking and human resources. Driving jobs are on par with the economy average, but haven’t moved much in the last month despite supply chain shortages plaguing consumers nationwide. With the paused decline of COVID-19 cases, job postings growth in pandemic-sensitive occupations like beauty & wellness and hospitality & tourism remain well below job postings nationally.

Table titled “Some occupational sectors have been hit harder than others.”
Table titled “Some occupational sectors have been hit harder than others.” Indeed compared the percent change in US job postings, between February 1, 2020, and November 5, 2021 across various occupational sectors divided into sections “Better than economy average,” “Similar to economy average,” and “Worse than economy average.” Human resources and loading & stocking jobs are highest relative to baseline. 

Job postings up across wage tiers and remote-work share

Job postings across occupational advertised wage tiers are well above their pre-pandemic baselines, but low advertised wage job postings have risen slower in recent weeks. We define low advertised median hourly wage as below $15 per hour, middle wage as $15 to $20.38 per hour and high wage as at or above $20.39 an hour. 

At the beginning of the pandemic, low advertised wage job postings, such as for loading & stocking and personal care & home health, recovered quickest and were often for critical roles as society shuttered at large. But since the delta surge in late summer, low advertised wage job postings started to lag middle and high advertised wage job postings, with a current spread of more than five percentage points.

Line graph titled “Job postings by occupation’s median advertised wage.”
Line graph titled “Job postings by occupation’s median advertised wage.” With a vertical axis ranging from -40% to 60%, Indeed tracked the percent change in job postings between February 1, 2020 and November 5, 2021 with lines representing “low wage(<$15)”, “middle wage ($15-$20.38)”, and “high wage($20.39+).” High wage and middle wage job postings are nearly up the same amount.

Job postings have climbed in both in-person and work-from-home sectors. That’s a change from the start of the pandemic, when low-remote postings recovered first and strongest. The early pandemic shift to remote work in the pandemic created jobs in occupations that supported the stay-at-home economy, like driving and warehouse jobs, that aren’t themselves work-from-home jobs.

Line graph titled “Job postings by occupation remote-work share.”
Line graph titled “Job postings by occupation remote-work share.” With a vertical axis ranging from -60% to 60%, Indeed tracked the percent change in job postings between February 1, 2020 and November 5, 2021 with lines representing “low remote”, “medium remote”, and “high remote.” High-remote and low-remote job postings are nearly up the same amount.

Job postings recovering across metros 

Within the US, job postings are up essentially everywhere. Except for Honolulu, postings are at least 25% above the pre-pandemic baseline in all large metros. 

Table titled “Metros with slowest growth in job postings.”
Table titled “Metros with slowest growth in job postings.” Indeed listed the US metros with the largest declines in job postings between February 1, 2020 and November 5, 2021. Job postings are back above baseline in all large metros. 

Metros where a higher share of people can work from home continue to recover more slowly than metros generally. These are mostly large metros with high education levels like tech hubs and finance centers. Similar to earlier in the pandemic, job postings rebounded more slowly in these metros. Postings in these metros finally rose above the pre-pandemic baseline at the end of March, but still lag all metros job growth by 11 percentage points. 

Line graph titled “Job postings in hospitality vs work-from-home metros.”
Line graph titled “Job postings in hospitality vs work-from-home metros.” With a vertical axis ranging from -50% to 50%, Indeed tracked the percent change in job postings between February 1, 2020 and November 5, 2021 with lines representing “all metros,” “high WFH metros,” and “high hospitality metros.” In high work-from-home metros, postings in retail, restaurant, and personal-services jobs have suffered. 

Job postings requiring vaccination rise further

Job postings advertising that vaccination is required continue to rise, now 2.5% of all US job postings on Indeed. Both 7.5% of pharmacy and childcare job postings, respectively, included vaccination requirements in job descriptions and Washington state leads the pack with 6.2% of its job postings requiring vaccination.

Line graph titled “Share of US job postings requiring vaccinations”
Line graph titled “Share of US job postings requiring vaccinations.” With a vertical axis ranging from 0 to 2.5%, Indeed tracked the share of job postings requiring COVID-19 vaccine explicitly along a horizontal axis ranging from February 1 to November 5. In a different colored line, Indeed tracked the share of job postings requiring vaccination along the same axis; as of November 5, 2.5% of US job postings on Indeed advertise required vaccination. 

We host the underlying job-postings chart data on Github as downloadable CSV files. Typically, it will be updated with the latest data one day after this blog post was published.

Methodology

All figures in this blog post are the percentage change in seasonally-adjusted job postings since February 1, 2020, using a seven-day trailing average. February 1, 2020, is our pre-pandemic baseline. We seasonally adjust each series based on historical patterns in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Each series, including the national trend, occupational sectors, and sub-national geographies, is seasonally adjusted separately. We adopted this new methodology in January 2021. Data for June 24-30, 2021, and November 1 are missing and were interpolated. The median hourly advertised wage of job postings is calculated by occupational sector for calendar year 2019. 

Indeed no longer allows Colorado jobs that ask the candidate to disclose their previous salaries. This has a meaningful effect on our postings in the state of Colorado and its metros, though not on our national totals.

The number of job postings on Indeed.com, whether related to paid or unpaid job solicitations, is not indicative of potential revenue or earnings of Indeed, which comprises a significant percentage of the HR Technology segment of its parent company, Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd. Job posting numbers are provided for information purposes only and should not be viewed as an indicator of performance of Indeed or Recruit. Please refer to the Recruit Holdings investor relations website and regulatory filings in Japan for more detailed information on revenue generation by Recruit’s HR Technology segment.