LinkUp Forecasting Net Gain Of Just 50,000 Jobs In December
In December, unique job listings in the U.S. indexed daily directly from company websites globally rose 2.6% to 3.92M. New job openings during the month rose 8.4% to 1.38M and job listings removed from company websites rose 15.9% to 1.48M.
![](https://optimise2.assets-servd.host/link-up/production/images/blog-thumbnails/NFP-Forecast.jpg?w=1080&auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=crop&dm=1680128024&s=1c63c506a5ff00b98666746463e3c95a)
In December, unique job listings in the U.S. indexed daily directly from company websites globally rose 2.6% to 3.92M. New job openings during the month rose 8.4% to 1.38M and job listings removed from company websites rose 15.9% to 1.48M.
While labor demand in the U.S. has risen 32% since May and is nearly back to pre-COVID levels, labor demand has remained flat since October.
![](https://blog.linkup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/N-R-T-DEC-2020-1024x620.png)
The same job data on a daily basis presents a similar but slightly more dramatic picture with job openings actually falling 3.9% since the end of October.
![](https://blog.linkup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Daily-N-R-T-2020-1024x431.png)
The LinkUp 10,000, which measures U.S. job openings for the 10,000 global employers with the most job openings each month, rose 2.6% in December but remains flat since October.
![](https://blog.linkup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/LinkUp-10000-DEC-2020-1024x576.png)
Hiring velocity slowed markedly in December as Average Job Duration rose from 38 days in November to 44 days in December.
![](https://blog.linkup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Duration-DEC-2020-1024x634.png)
Looking at new job openings at a state level across 3 periods in 2020 tells a very similar story to the preceding charts while also highlighting the disparity in job growth as states reacted to the pandemic in different ways.
As a side note, a nominee for best analogy of 2020 has to be Neil deGrasse Tyson who, in a Smartless podcast episode, compared the administration’s decision to leave it up to states to determine their COVID policies, as akin to having a pee section in a public pool.
In any event, between February and April, new job openings across the country fell 49%.
![](https://blog.linkup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/New-FEB-APR-1024x719.png)
Between April and October, new job openings rose 99%.
![](https://blog.linkup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/New-APR-OCT-1024x654.png)
And since October, new job openings have declined 5%.
![](https://blog.linkup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/New-OCT-DEC-1024x654.png)
For our non-farm payroll (NFP) forecast, we use paired-month data which looks at new and total job openings for a set of companies that were hiring in consecutive months – in this case November and December.
In December, new job openings fell 1.4% while total job openings fell 0.3%.
![](https://blog.linkup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Paired-Month-By-State-DEC-2020-572x1024.png)
Based on our paired-month data, we are forecasting a net gain of just 50,000 jobs in December, slightly below consensus forecast for tomorrow’s jobs report.
![](https://blog.linkup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DEC20-NFP-Forecast.png)
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