Glassdoor Economic Research Launches Monthly Job Market Report, Offering Real-Time and More Detailed View Into U.S. Job Growth, Hiring and Pay Trends

Nearly 5.6 million open jobs in April, down 0.4%, as pay steadily ticks up at 1.4% YoY; Atlanta sees fastest job growth at 7.9% YoY with Houston seeing the slowest at -5.1% YoY

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Apr 30, 2019, 09:04 ET

MILL VALLEY, Calif., April 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Amid one of the strongest job markets in a generation and growing uncertainty around an inevitable economic slowdown, timely insights into how the labor market is changing, as it happens, may be more critical than ever. Today, the Glassdoor Economic Research team introduced its Job Market Report, a monthly report offering job growth and pay growth data, trends and analysis for a more real-time and more detailed view into the current condition of the United States labor market and economy. The Glassdoor Job Market Report is based on millions of open jobs online and salaries shared anonymously by employees on Glassdoor, and offers detailed and reliable job market and pay trends for the U.S., including breakouts in ten major metros, across dozens of industries, by employer size and more.

The Glassdoor Job Market Report leverages the same technology behind Glassdoor's powerful job search and Know Your Worth products and applies proprietary data science and machine learning algorithms to Glassdoor data to aggregate and analyze online job openings and estimate wage growth¹. While similar reports are often based on data from several months prior, the Job Market Report offers fresher and more detailed job and pay data and analysis based on what's happening right now. Job opening and pay data are available for the U.S., and both are localized for metros including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C. Glassdoor expects to add more metros in the future.

"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. "Employers can open or close job postings instantly in response to fast-changing economic winds or world events. However, it can take weeks or even months to hire or layoff workers in response to changing business strategy, the economy or other news. 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. In terms of job growth, this month's 5.6 million job openings figure is down from an all-time high of 5.8 million open online jobs from October 2018 and represents the continuation of steady, but slow, job growth thus far in 2019. Among the ten metros tracked in the Job Market Report, growth among job openings remains mixed. Atlanta saw the biggest job growth (120,531 job openings, up 7.9 percent year-over-year growth) while wages grew 2.2 percent ($54,829 median base pay). Meanwhile, Houston saw the biggest decline in job growth (91,853 job openings, down 5.1 percent year-over-year) while wages declined 0.6 percent year-over-year ($55,522 median base pay), continuing a deceleration the southern metro has seen in both job and pay growth so far in 2019.

"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. "This slowdown in job growth is likely due to the missing burst of hiring in the first quarter of 2019. The first quarter is when we traditionally see a surge in hiring to kick off the new year, but this year, that didn't happen. That is one reason why we're seeing more stunted hiring now."

While 2018 was a strong year for the economy, with companies benefiting from tax breaks that propelled hiring forward, some industries are seeing job growth and hiring continue, while for other industries the trend has fizzled. Consumer electronics (11,083 job openings, up 60.2 percent year-over-year) and insurance (82,914 job openings, up 29.9 percent) are among the industries with some of the fastest annual growth in open jobs. Conversely, the technology industry saw the slowest growth, down 28.5 percent year-over-year to 69,129 U.S. job openings this month, likely in part a result of the onslaught of data privacy issues and other controversies that plagued the tech industry in late 2018.

Visit Glassdoor Economic Research to subscribe to the latest job market and economic employment reports. The Glassdoor Job Market Report is a monthly report that will publish the Tuesday before the BLS Employment Situation report.

About Glassdoor
Glassdoor combines all the latest jobs with millions of reviews and insights to make it easy for people to find a job that is uniquely right for them. The company is on a mission to help people everywhere find a job and company they love. In pursuit of the mission, Glassdoor helps employers hire truly informed candidates at scale through effective recruiting solutions like job advertising and employer branding products. Launched in 2008, Glassdoor now has reviews and insights for more than 900,000 companies located in more than 190 countries. For more information, visit glassdoor.com.

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¹For more information on the Job Market Report's estimates of open jobs and median pay, see our methodology here: https://www.glassdoor.com/research/job-market-report /

SOURCE Glassdoor