The US Online Job Market Improved Slightly in July

by Ben Lorica | @dliman | comments: 12

Measured in terms of online job postings, the U.S. job market^† improved slightly in July. Here are two views of the number of job postings per day: note the slight uptick in July 2009 in both graphs.

The worst year-over-year decline occurred in April, the online job market subsequently shed less postings in May and June. Given that July was an improvement over May/June, one would hope that the stage is set for a sustained upward trend. But with 45% fewer job postings in Jul-09 compared to Jul-08, the U.S. online job market remains far from the levels seen in previous years.

Alternatively, it may take a long period before job postings return to 2008 levels. Instead of looking for green shoots, we may have to brace ourselves and adjust to the New Normal: a stretch of time when job postings remain significantly less than the 2006-2008 period.

There were fewer online job postings in every state, with losses ranging from 36-37% in VA, MD, OK, AK, to 55-58% in DE, WY, MN, WI. The two largest states (CA, TX) had 50% and 43% fewer job postings in 2009 compared to the same period in 2008:

(†) In partnership with SimplyHired and Greenplum, we maintain a data warehouse that contains most U.S. online job postings dating back to mid-2005. Data for this post was through 7/31/2009.

The US Online Job Market Was (still) Down Big In June 2009

by Ben Lorica | @dliman | comments: 5

Updating my post from early June, the U.S. online job market^† still hasn't shown signs of recovering from steady declines that began in September of last year. Compared to the same period last year, there were 50% fewer job postings in June 2009.

An alternate view highlights the start of the downward trend, as well as the smaller than expected seasonal bounce from Dec-08 to Jan/Feb 2009. In a normal year, the number of postings decline in December (as employers table job searches for after the holidays) and recovers sharply the following Jan/Feb. While job postings did bounce back in Jan/Feb 2009, the seasonal bump was less than half of what occurred in previous years.

No geographic region has been exempt from the downturn in online job postings. There have been sharp declines in all states, ranging from -59% in DE, WY, and MN, to -38% in MD, OK, VA.

In closing, we still haven't detected the green shoots that some forecasters have been crowing about over the last few months. If one were to take an optimistic perspective, the worse year-over-year decline occurred in April. OTOH, we are still staring at a 50% decline in June 2009. So while we may have hit the bottom in April, we need a few strong(er) months before we can comfortably announce the arrival of green shoots.

(†) In partnership with SimplyHired and Greenplum, we maintain a data warehouse that contains most U.S. online job postings dating back to mid-2005. Data for this post was through 6/28/2009.

The Economic Crisis and the US Online Job Market

by Ben Lorica | @dliman | comments: 11

In my previous post, I noted that despite the large decline in total number of job postings, the number Hadoop/MapReduce job postings increased by 49%. What is the current state of the online job market? The financial crisis that began in the Fall of 2008 has had a lasting negative effect on the U.S. online job market. Since late 2008, there have been significantly less jobs posted online.

Using data from SimplyHired^† and a few charts, I'll quickly highlight the impact of the global economic crisis on the U.S. online job market. To quantify the sudden drop in U.S. online job postings, I calculated the average number of job posts per day:

The number of posts declined 49% from Jan/May 2008 to Jan/May 2009. While there has been a downward trend since April 2008, the financial crisis in September 2008 marked the start of even larger reductions. In particular, the relatively small number of job postings in Nov/Dec 2008 has carried over into the first five months of 2009. The sharp seasonal rebound that occurs in Jan/Feb of each year, was practically non-existent in 2009. While some forecasters are seeing signs of a recovery, at least through the first five months of 2009, we haven't detected "green shoots" in the U.S. online job market.

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Most Hadoop Jobs Are In California

by Ben Lorica | @dliman | comments: 4

Given the recent buzz surrounding Hadoop and MapReduce, I was curious if employers were beginning to mention either term in their job postings. Fortunately I have access to a massive job data warehouse dating back to mid-2005. In partnership with SimplyHired and Greenplum, we maintain a data warehouse that contains most of the online job postings in the U.S.

While the percentage of job postings that mention either Hadoop or MapReduce remains miniscule, the number of such postings is growing steadily:

The number of Hadoop/MapReduce job postings (during the Feb/Apr 2009 period) grew 49% compared to 2008. In contrast, the tough economic environment has translated to significantly fewer job postings: the total number of online job postings declined 40% during the same period.

How mainstream is Hadoop? While researching our report on Big Data, we talked to a (database) vendor who jokingly claimed that nobody outside of the West & East coast cared about Hadoop. Analysis of recent job postings seems to support that perspective. During the three most recent months, employers in 18 states posted Hadoop/MapReduce jobs online, but 60% of those were in California. The top 5 states (CA, MD, NY, MA, WA) accounted for 87% of the Hadoop/MapReduce job postings:

Looking at the same period last year, 72% of the job postings were in California, and the top 5 states (CA, WA, TX, PA, VA) accounted for 79%.

Given the presence of large (Google, Yahoo!, Facebook) and small companies (Cloudera, Greenplum, Aster, ...) who are leaders in the use of Hadoop/MapReduce, it's no surprise that at this early stage, a large share of jobs are in California. While the share of California job postings remains high (60%), it's down from 72% last year. As mentioned above, the percentage of job postings that mention either Hadoop or MapReduce remains miniscule, so I caution against reading too much into the geographic distributions. Nevertheless, it's clear that California employers are expressing interest in Hadoop skills ahead of their peers in other states.