LinkUp's November 2023 JOLTS Forecast

We continue to track a decline in labor demand this month–our data signals that November saw a 2% drop in job openings nationally, clocking a total of 8.56 million open jobs. A 2% decline is significant and underscores a pattern of tapering labor demand over the previous 90 days. It’s clear that employers are bracing for the economic uncertainty likely to mark the first quarter of 2024.

As always, our forecast comes well ahead of the official JOLTs release; the BLS will release its job opening report for November on January 3rd, 2024. Bear in mind that the BLS derives JOLTs numbers from surveys and their method has always been, to some extent, an exercise in speculation. But in the last four years, the response rate of the JOLTs survey has plummeted from roughly 60% in 2019 to a room-clearing 31% by February of this year. With data like these, who needs enemies?

LinkUp never leverages surveys because we don’t have to. Our job openings data comes directly from the source–listings on company websites, indexed daily. As the JOLTs survey continues to skew into the field of abstraction, LinkUp’s accurate and timely data stands as the leading bellwether of job market conditions as they evolve in real time.

We’ll continue to monitor and report on the evolving state of the labor economy. In the meantime, for an in depth overview of the job market, key concepts and labor market metrics, check out our Jobs 101 blog series.