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 January 21, 2022, they were 60.5% above February 1, 2020, the pre-pandemic baseline, after adjusting for seasonal variation. Postings declined 0.1 percentage points in the past week, likely driven by the latest wave of the pandemic. 

Line graph titled “Job postings on Indeed, United States.”
Line graph titled “Job postings on Indeed, United States.” With a vertical axis ranging from -60% to 60%, Indeed tracked the percent change in job postings between February 1, 2020 and January 21, 2022. On January 21, 2022  job postings were 60.5% above February 1, 2020, the pre-pandemic baseline. 

The full economic impact of the omicron surge will become clearer in the coming weeks, but new job postings (those on Indeed for 7 days or less) have also declined. As of January 21, new postings are 67.2% above pre-pandemic baseline, dropping 10 percentage points since last 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 January 21, 2022, as well as the trend in new job postings (7 days or less) over the same period. On January 21, 2022, job postings were 60.5% above February 1, 2020, the pre-pandemic baseline. New job postings were 67.2% above pre-pandemic baseline. 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 January 21, 2022, as well as the trend in new job postings (7 days or less) over the same period. On January 21, 2022, job postings were 60.5% above February 1, 2020, the pre-pandemic baseline. New job postings were 67.2% above pre-pandemic baseline. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 10.6 million job openings at the end of November in its latest JOLTS report. Job postings on Indeed increased 1.9% between November 30 and January 21. If JOLTS openings have grown since November 30 at the same rate as Indeed job postings, that implies 10.8 million job openings as of January 21.

Lots of postings for HR and software development jobs

Job postings in all occupational sectors are above pre-pandemic baseline, especially human resources and software development. Pharmacy job postings, while similar to the economy average, have fallen 27.1% since December 24 as demand for COVID-19 vaccinations slows. Food preparation & service, hospitality & tourism and arts & entertainment all declined over the last four weeks. These occupational sectors are particularly vulnerable to the pandemic, as many of these jobs are in-person and serve in-person consumers.

Table titled “Some occupations are booming while others lag.”
Table titled “Some occupations are booming while others lag.” Indeed compared the percent change in US job postings, between February 1, 2020, and January 21, 2022 across various occupational sectors divided into sections “Better than economy average,” “Similar to economy average,” and “Worse than economy average.” Human resources and software development jobs are highest relative to baseline. 

Job postings across wage tiers and remote-work share

Job postings across occupational advertised wage tiers are well above their pre-pandemic baselines, but job postings in sectors that advertise lower wages have declined over the last week. We define job postings wage tiers by advertised 2019 median hourly wage, so recent wages gains do not shift this job postings grouping. 

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 now, low advertised wage job postings lag middle and high advertised wage job postings by nineteen 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 -25% to 75%, Indeed tracked the percent change in job postings between February 1, 2020 and January 21, 2022 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 are up in both in-person and work-from-home sectors, with high remote job sectors climbing the most as of January 21. 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 -40% to 40%, Indeed tracked the percent change in job postings between February 1, 2020 and January 21, 2022 with lines representing “low remote”, “medium remote”, and “high remote.” 

Depressed relative interest in in-person job postings

While employer demand for workers is well above pre-pandemic levels, there’s yet to be a flood of job seekers to fill open positions. The Relative Job Seeker Interest metric captures what jobs workers are currently looking at by tracking changes in job seeker interest in an occupational sector since the beginning of the pandemic compared with the average job. 

During the fall, job seeker interest, relative to the national average, shifted towards job postings with higher advertised wages and that were more likely to be remote. Relative job seeker interest in some in-person sectors, like personal care & home health, remains well below the national trend. Interest in manufacturing is down nearly 25% and loading & stocking by 33%, as of January 21. For occupational sectors seeing below average interest, employers may struggle to find the workers and may need to consider wage increases, hiring incentives or additional benefits to attract jobseekers.  

Line graph titled “Interest in several in-person occupations remains down.”
Line graph titled “Interest in several in-person occupations remains down.” With a vertical axis ranging from -40% to 20%, Indeed tracked the percent change in relative US job seeker interest per post between February 1, 2020 and January 21, 2022 in personal care & home health, manufacturing and loading & stocking. As of January 21 2022, relative interest in postings in these fields was down over 25% compared with their February 1, 2020 levels.

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, November 1, 2021 and January 1, 2022 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.