Job Market Report: How Many Jobs Are There in America?

As HR pros or hiring managers, you have your tried-and-tested resources for understanding the job market: which companies are on a hiring spree, what is the going base salary for software engineers, which cities are home to the best talent. However, many of these resources (cough, cough BLS) are pulling months-old data and painting a picture that isn't as up to date as it can be. ...until now.

Today, the Glassdoor Economic Research team introduced its Job Market Report set to publish each month and offer the latest job growth and pay growth data, trends and analysis across the U.S. and in 10 major metros. Unlike BLS and other reports, Glassdoor’s Job Market Report offers fresher data as it tracks job market changes as they happen versus data several months old. Also, our report provides more detail, offering job and pay data changes by industry, across employer size and more.

“Job openings are like a crystal ball into how employers are hiring and a major indicator of the health of the U.S. economy,” said Dr. Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor chief economist. “With the Job Market Report, Glassdoor leverages the power of big data and real-time job listings to take a forward look into the economy, offering the latest pulse on what’s happening in the job market right now.”

The inaugural April 2019 Job Market Report reveals that both job openings and pay growth remain slow but steady. Right now, there are nearly 5.6 million open online jobs in the U.S., down just 0.4 percent from one year ago (April 2018), while pay is up 1.4 percent year-over-year, with the average U.S. full-time worker now earning a median base pay of $52,807.

With over 120,000 job openings, Atlanta hits an ideal sweet spot with the fastest job opening growth and solidly above average pay growth. As the school year ends, Atlanta could be an ideal option for companies and recruiters looking to hire recent grads

Boston has over 142,000 job openings, up 4.4% since last year. Meanwhile, tech hub San Francisco is actually hiring less than it was last year despite a growing median base pay.

But it’s not all about big cities and big employers. Turns out, small businesses are on a hiring spree.

According to our job market report research, small employers with less than 200 employees saw the fastest growth in job openings, whereas the largest employers with over 5,000 employees actually saw job openings decrease.

Metro Area Job Growth:

• Atlanta: +7.9% (120,531 open jobs):
• Boston: +4.2% (142,341)
• Seattle: +2.2% (107,601)
• Philadelphia: +1.4% (105,523)
• Chicago: +0.8% (192,155)
• Los Angeles: -2.8% (202,389)
• San Francisco: -2.9% (140,309)
• New York City: -3.9% (290,792)
• Washington, D.C: -4.1% (171,252)
• Houston: -5.1% (91,853)

Industries Hiring Most: The consumer electronics industry saw the fastest job opening growth as companies like Best Buy increased hiring.

• Consumer Electronics: +60.2% (11,083 open jobs)
• Insurance: +29.9% (82,914)
• Accounting & Legal: +23.6% (51,696)

Surprisingly, internet & tech, an industry that includes companies like Facebook and Google, saw a large decline in job openings in April (down 28.5 percent). The tech industry benefited from strong growth in early 2018, but job openings flattened in the second-half of 2018 to present. Large employers were particularly hesitant to ramp hiring, likely in part because a series of scandals and potential new regulations around technology and data privacy issues clouded expectations for the near future.  This presents an opportunity for recruiters in other industries like healthcare and financial services looking to hire top tech talent, like software engineers and data scientists. “What this month’s Glassdoor Job Market Report shows is yet another clear sign pointing towards a slowdown in the labor market. This isn’t a cause for alarm, but it is a splash of cold water on the labor market compared to the blazing job growth we saw through most of 2018,” said Daniel Zhao, Glassdoor senior economist.

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Job Market Report