The Market Reaction to Job Listing Data

How companies manage and pursue human capital is a key factor in their long-term market performance. Scholars from the University of California, the University of Illinois, and the University of Chile conducted peer-reviewed analysis employing LinkUp’s job listing data, collected directly from company websites, to examine the relationship between hiring practices and company growth.

Their findings demonstrate that changes in job listings are positively associated with a company’s future performance, and that this relationship is stronger when listings likely represent growth rather than replacement.

“To better understand the nature of the information contained in job postings, we first examine their relation with future number of employees and financial performance. Consistent with job postings predicting hiring and employee-related expenditures, we find that changes in the number of job postings are positively associated with one-year ahead growth in the number of employees and selling, general, and administrative expense (SG&A). We also find a positive association between job postings and one-year ahead growth in sales and earnings.”

Gutierrez, Elizabeth F. and Lourie, Ben and Nekrasov, Alexander and Shevlin, Terry J. and Shevlin, Terry J., Are Online Job Postings Informative to Investors? (July 16, 2019). Management Science, forthcoming., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3342 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn