Significant Jump in New Job Openings in January 2019, According to iCIMS’ Monthly Hiring Indicator

HOLMDEL, N.J. [February 1, 2019] – U.S. employers posted 9.3 percent more new job openings in January 2019 than December 2018 on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Monthly Hiring Indicator (MHI), a leading economic indicator published by iCIMS, drawing upon its database of more 75 million applications and 4 million hires each year.

While new openings – the number of brand-new jobs opened over the course of a given month – tend to increase every January, they spiked 28 percent on a non-seasonally adjusted basis. This was a material jump over any previous month, including the stimulus-supported figure in January 2018. It indicates employers’ demand for talent continues to grow and their confidence in the outlook remains resilient, despite signs of slowdowns in several of the leading economies outside the U.S. Consistent with strong payroll growth, employers also continued to hire strongly, with new hires rising 1.3 percent, to an index value of 152.7 from 150.8 in December 2018.

January 2019 Report Highlights:

Job openings and hires rose across the major sectors that iCIMS tracks, as well as across most U.S. regions, but:

• —   Hires rose the most in the healthcare and business services sectors, where they  increased 24 percent and 12 percent on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, respectively.
• —   In the manufacturing and retail sectors, hires and new openings also increased, which is generally in line with their typical spike every January.
• —   New hires in Midwest stumbled, presumably because of the cold snap, but new openings were more in line with rest of the nation.

“Employer demand for new talent is accelerating, which is a bit of surprise given the signs of economic slowdown in some major economies aboard,” said Josh Wright, chief economist at iCIMS. “While wages are rising, they’re not skyrocketing, so employers will have to get more creative in enticing employees, or risk losing out to competitors. They will be hard-pressed to fill all these new positions unless they look at  their total offering, beyond just salary.”

About the iCIMS Monthly Hiring Indicator (MHI) Methodology: 

The iCIMS Monthly Hiring Indicator (MHI) measures job openings and new hires, based on iCIMS system data, which is generated by user activity within our platform. iCIMS processes more than one million hires per quarter and 75 million applications per year. While iCIMS supports employers across the globe, the MHI is based on U.S. hiring activity only. The figures present both indexes of hiring activity and their month-over-month percentage change, using a fixed panel of customers. To facilitate comparison with benchmark data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, iCIMS publishes its indexes both with and without seasonal adjustments. Data from the MHI has been referenced by Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Fox Business and NBC. To learn more about iCIMS’ MHI, visit iCIMS Hiring Insights, where the latest data and details on the methodology are both available for download.