February 2010: U.S. Employment Activity

With an increase of 12.5 points (to an Index score of 83.3), job availability enjoyed a surprising rebound in February, and even managed to boast the largest single-month gain the Index has seen since July 2009. Representing a nearly 69% improvement over February of last year, this performance may indicate that the employment recovery job seekers have been waiting for is finally underway. Of course, given that the volume of managerial job openings across the U.S. is still nearly 17% below 2007 levels, a return to full employment is still a long way off.

READING THE INDEX: The CareerCast.com/JobSerf Employment Index measures all Index scores against a base year of 2007, where the number of job listings available online during each month of 2007 = 100 points. This means that a score that is < 100 indicates the number of job listings for a given month is less than during the same month in 2007, while a value > 100 means that more jobs are available than were during the same month in 2007.

Table of Job Posting Index Scores, Jan 2008 - February 2010:

Index Month	Index Score	Monthly Change
February 2010	83.3	+12.5
January 2010	70.8	-3.1
December 2009	73.9	+0.2
November 2009	73.7	+5.9
October 2009	67.8	-0.6
September 2009	68.4	-11.4
August 2009	79.8	+1.6
July 2009	78.2	+17.8
June 2009	60.4	+3.8
May 2009	56.6	+15.2
April 2009	41.4	-2.7
March 2009	44.1	-5.4
February 2009	49.5	-12.2
January 2009	61.7	-4.5
December 2008	66.2	-10.9
November 2008	77.1	+3.7
October 2008	73.4	-14.3
September 2008	87.7	-18.0
August 2008	105.7	+5.4
July 2008	100.3	-2.3
June 2008	102.6	+6.8
May 2008	95.8	+1.6
April 2008	94.2	-15.1
March 2008	109.3	+0.3
February 2008	109.0	+8.7
January 2008	100.3	+/-0

Tracking activity back to January 2008, February’s Index score of 83.3 means that the volume of available managerial jobs across the U.S. has now returned to a level not seen 17 months. This is still nearly 24% below 2008 levels, but considering that February 2008 represented one of the best hiring months in the past three years, it is still an impressive performance.