Do Online Job Postings Capture Job Vacancies?

Michael Dalton, Lisa B. Kahn and Andreas Mueller

No 35697, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We ask whether online job postings capture U.S. job vacancies, matching near-universal Burning Glass (BG) postings to the representative Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). BG converged toward JOLTS over 2007–2022, and its representativeness varies across establishment characteristics. We reweight BG to align postings with JOLTS openings along observables, and assess impacts on prior BG findings. Because large establishments account for most openings and are well represented, the level and cyclicality of skill demand survive our adjustment. But BG overstates labor market concentration (the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index) nearly threefold, because small and mid-sized establishments post less online.

JEL-codes: E24 E32 J23 J42 J63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-09
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