Our Data is Built on TRUST

T

Traceable

R

Reliable

U

Usable

S

Supervised

T

Transparent

Data Pipeline

DirectEmployers Association, a co-founder of the National Labor Exchange (NLx), collects job postings every day from vetted employers, state job banks, and USAJobs.gov. Job postings are collected from employer websites and hiring systems or added directly by employers themselves. Our job postings never come from job boards that often contain scam and duplicate postings. 

Every day, the NLx Research Hub receives  job postings from DirectEmployers and adds them to our database. Users can access this data through an API or secure server files.

Data Formats

  • Refreshed every 24 hours, the NLx Research Hub API is created to help you easily integrate the NLx data into visualizations, data tools, and any solution requiring live access to the Research Hub database.

  • With job postings dating back to 2003, the NLx Research Hub’s historical data is available via secure server and best used for analytic purposes. You can use the “Job” table to see the latest version of every job posting that has gone through the NLx job feed since 2015, with more than 150 million postings. Or, you can use the “JobHistory” table to see a copy of each day’s job feed since 2021, with more than 4 billion records.

  • Coming soon!

Use Cases

  • Driving Research and Analysis

    Real-time and historical job posting data equips labor economists, researchers, and state workforce agencies to conduct analysis and inform evidence-based policy decisions. It is used to uncover trends in occupational, skill, and regional labor demand.

  • Powering Recommendation Engines

    Public workforce professionals, education platforms, and career service providers use NLx job posting data to build and refine career recommendations. The data powers tools that help people find jobs that fit their skills, experience, and location, making it easier to explore opportunities and find the right job.

  • Integrated into Tools and Visualizations

    State and local workforce development boards, community colleges, and economic development groups use NLx data to power dashboards, maps, and other tools that show what is happening in the labor market. These tools help track hiring trends, identify training gaps, and align workforce programs with the needs of employers.

  • Supporting New Models and Data Standards

    Federal agencies, data scientists, and workforce organizations collaborate with the NLx Research Hub to improve how job posting data is structured, shared, and applied. Together, we develop new models and advance data standards to make it easier for workforce and education organizations to use labor market information.

Strengths

Strengths of Our Data

  • The NLx Research Hub provides job posting data from across the U.S. through its unique NLx data pipeline. This includes typical employers who post openings online, but also job postings from small employers that may only be shared through state job banks and are not easily found elsewhere online.

  • Because we collect job postings directly from verified employers via state job banks and employer websites and Applicant Tracking Systems, our data is very unlikely to include scams or duplicate postings.

  • The NLx Research Hub works to make job posting data easier to access and use. We offer affordable options, transparent and open-source methods, and a variety of data formats and products to meet different needs.

  • The NLx Research Hub is designed to respond quickly to data issues and work with users to develop new products, services, and technical improvements that meet their changing needs.

Value of Job Postings as Data

Job postings provide a timely source of labor demand data, direct from employers. Real-time and historical job posting data can help users track changes in labor demand, including understanding emerging trends, and seeing how the job market responds to economic and policy changes.

Limitations

Strengths of Our Data

  • NLx job postings come from a variety of sources, so the amount of information included in each posting varies. State and territory job banks require different fields on manual entry forms, while postings collected directly from employers include only the information the employer provides on their website or Applicant Tracking System.

  • As the NLx Research Hub and NLx job feed continue to mature, we work to make the data more comprehensive and research-friendly. Changes in the data may reflect changes in how employers advertise job openings or growth in the NLx network, rather than changes in the labor market itself. We document these changes and share them with users whenever possible.

  • Because the NLx Research Hub data comes from the NLx job feed, there are certain structural and process elements that are designed more for job feed purposes than for research. The primary example is the handling of remote or location-flexible positions, which appear as multiple records in the Research Hub data (“shadow jobs”), each tagged to a different geographic area. For more information, please review our FAQs.

Cautions Using Job Postings as Data

There are a few things to keep in mind when using job postings as data generally. A job posting does not always represent one job opening. Some openings may never be posted online, while some postings may represent multiple openings.

Job postings are also written by employers to attract applicants, not to be used for research. As a result, the information, wording, and level of detail can vary by employer and over time.

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