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Job-search market research method

See the proposed inputs, sampling rules, exclusions, privacy safeguards, and reporting limits for job-search market research method. No aggregate claim is published until the required evidence and review threshold is met.

Methodology explains a preparation signal; it does not turn the result into a hiring prediction.

Read labour-market context without confusing it with live postings

BLS and OECD statistics support occupation, wage, and cross-country context. A claim about current posting volume or requested skills needs a separate, dated job-posting corpus.

What does the official labour-market baseline say, and what is actually visible in current job postings?

Verified public facts

830 approximatelyOccupations covered2026-08-27

The May 2025 OEWS release provides employment and wage estimates for approximately 830 occupations across national, state, metropolitan, nonmetropolitan, and selected industry views.

How to use it
Occupation-and-location wage context, with the release period shown.
What this data cannot establish
A company-specific salary, a candidate-specific offer, or current job-posting demand.
1100000 aboutEstablishments in the six-panel sample2026-08-27

May 2025 OEWS estimates use a model-based method built from a sample of about 1.1 million establishments collected over three years.

How to use it
Explaining why OEWS is a population estimate rather than a live list of offers.
What this data cannot establish
That every employer was surveyed in the reference year.
38 countriesOECD member countries covered where applicable2026-08-27

The OECD Employment Database covers all 38 OECD countries where applicable and includes employment, unemployment, working-time, wage-dispersion, and wage-gap series.

How to use it
Cross-country labour-market context when the same indicator definition and period are preserved.
What this data cannot establish
A direct occupation-level salary comparison when countries use different classifications or wage concepts.

Synthetic market example

Synthetic example for interpretation practice—not an observed Refresh result.

Scenario input
Example only: an annual occupational employment estimate and 60 postings collected in one month answer different questions.
Calculation and interpretation
Keep them as two observations because they have no shared denominator or timeframe.
Decision this supports
Use the estimate for occupation context and the 60-posting denominator for current wording checks.
Comparability limit
Do not divide postings by the employment estimate or describe the result as a vacancy rate.
Research protocol and unpublished result fields

How the data is handled

  1. Anchor the baseline

    Show the BLS or OECD reference period, geography, population, and indicator definition next to every value.

  2. Build a separate posting sample

    Record source URL, first and last seen dates, location, occupation mapping, and duplicate key for each posting.

Definitions that travel with the result

Employment estimate
An estimate of jobs in an occupation under the source methodology; it is not a count of open job postings.
Posting share
The number of eligible, deduplicated postings in a category divided by all eligible postings in the same dated corpus.

Results that still require observed data

Dated posting snapshot

What occupations, locations, and requirements appear in the eligible postings observed during this period?

Awaiting observed data
Required result fields
  • Source URL

    The exact page or record used for the observation.

    string · required
  • First seen at

    The first date the exact posting URL was observed.

    date · required
  • Last seen at

    The most recent date the posting remained reachable and materially unchanged.

    date · required
  • Geography

    The country, state, metro, or other area represented.

    string · required
  • Occupation code

    The source taxonomy code, not a label inferred from a job title.

    string · required
  • Category

    A documented category with a stable definition.

    string · required
  • Count

    The numerator after deduplication and exclusions.

    number · required
  • Denominator

    The eligible records used to calculate a share or rate.

    number · required
  • Metric definition

    The exact inclusion, exclusion, and calculation rule.

    string · required
Publish only when
Publish only with a frozen observation window, deduplication key, coverage list, and occupation-mapping review.
Awaiting observed data
Official labour-market context is available. No current posting count is published without a dated corpus.

What this data cannot establish

  • OEWS is an annual estimate from a multi-year sample, not a real-time hiring dashboard.
  • Job-board coverage, reposting, syndication, and location ambiguity can materially change posting counts.

How to use it

  • Use official estimates for context and dated postings for current search decisions.

Official data sources

  • Occupational Employment and Wage StatisticsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics2026-08-27
    Coverage
    Employment and wage estimates by occupation, geography, and industry, published with an annual May reference date.
    Boundary
    OEWS estimates cover wage and salary workers in nonfarm establishments. They do not represent a specific company offer or an individual candidate.
  • OECD Employment DatabaseOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development2026-08-27
    Coverage
    Internationally comparable labour-force, employment, unemployment, working-time, wage-dispersion, and wage-gap series.
    Boundary
    Cross-country values must keep the published definition, population, frequency, currency or adjustment method, and reference period attached.

Frequently asked questions

Read the result with its method and limits.

Use the relevant methodology before deciding which finding to act on.