Junjie Guo
Executive Summary:
This data brief reports the current status and the evolution of job openings and labor market tightness in the U.S. and Wisconsin. The latest data suggest that the number of job openings per capita is 4% in the U.S. and 4.5% in Wisconsin, significantly higher than their pre-pandemic levels of around 2.7% and 3.4%, respectively. The same is true for the number of new online job postings, which increased by about 26% between January 2020 and January 2022 in the U.S., and by about 20% in Wisconsin. In comparison, the number of unemployed workers in the U.S. dropped by about 8% between January 2020 and December 2021, and it dropped by about 43% in Wisconsin. Together, the numbers suggest the labor markets in both the U.S. and Wisconsin are much tighter now than it was before the pandemic. However, there are some heterogeneities both across states and across sectors within a state. For example, the number of job openings per unemployed worker has not recovered to its pre-pandemic level in 8 states, including Colorado and Hawaii, and the increase in the number of new online job postings in Wisconsin between January 2020 and January 2022 is much larger for the manufacturing sector than it is for leisure and hospitality.