This evaluation was done using data from Indeed.com and the U.S. Labor Department monthly reports.
The number of jobs available nationwide from all of Indeed.coms sources is displayed as looking backward seven days. This includes the majority of local newspapers, national newspapers, Monster, Careerbuilder, Federal Government, State Government, Local Government, and a host of others.
I looked at Saturday because that captures a full previous week including the Sunday Newspaper job ads, all the weekly headhunter postings, and all other jobs posted at the sites Indeed.com covers. The pay scale is from $7/hour to $300,000 a year.
One can infer the following from the chart and data tabulated below.
1) Indeed predicted an increase in hiring at least two weeks prior to the Labor Department report for the same time frame in May 2009,
2) Indeed allows a broader spectrum inspection than the Labor Department data because it is searchable in boolean logic,
3) The correlation between Indeed.com and the Labor Department statistics for the same time frame has an r value of 0.97. For those who do not know about r values this is good correlation, very good in fact.
4) A probable savings to the taxpayer would be farming out the statistical reporting to Indeed.com as their data is just as predictive as the Labor Department, more timely, and it is free.
Can you say "good news."
This is substantiated by numerous news reports.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/08/AR2009050800394.html?nav=rss_business
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090508-713714.html
http://uk.reuters.com/article/marketsNewsUS/idUKN0845562320090508
Data
Jobs
Date Available
07-Feb 928972
14-Feb 755989
21-Feb 650530
28-Feb 759728
07-Mar 776768
14-Mar 738771
21-Mar 760875
28-Mar 765009
04-Apr 758726
11-Apr 729621
18-Apr 737860
25-Apr 813377
02-May 843213
09-May 851774
16-May 803135
23-May 781657
30-May 706523
06-Jun 756212
13-Jun 723627
One note: I neither work for Indeed.com, have no financial interest in the company, and do not know any of Indeed.coms employees. No one from Indeed.com contributed to this article in any way nor were they aware I was going to do such an article.