Economics
U.S. Jobs & Labor Chart Pack: April 2024
Report summary
Morning Consult's Jobs and Labor Chart Pack provides a monthly update on the current state of the labor market in the United States.
Chart Pack highlights include:
Time-series look at Lost Pay and Income and Job Search Activity data in the United States, covering demographic cuts such as:
- Income
- Census region
- Employment industry, including Manufacturing, Construction, Technology, Financial Services, Health care, Leisure & Hospitality, Food & Beverage, Retail, Transport and Property
- Job title, including Director, Manager, Assistant/Associate, Other
- Number of company employees
- Race/ethnicity
- Age, including prime age workers
Morning Consult Economic Intelligence and Pro+ subscribers get access to the underlying weekly data below. The two data sets are accompanied by Morning Consult's monthly labor market survey.
Data Downloads
Pro+ subscribers are able to download the datasets that underpin Morning Consult Pro's reports and analysis. Contact us to get access.
Methodology
This chart pack and data download files rely on three separate surveys aiming to provide a detailed assessment of the current state of the U.S. labor market, featuring proprietary data that provides enhanced scale, frequency and depth to official data sets.
Morning Consult’s U.S. Lost Pay/Income data provides an early, high frequency indicator of the health of the U.S. labor market. The survey closely tracks initial unemployment claims. However, unlike weekly unemployment claims data, our data includes adults who lost pay or income but were either ineligible for unemployment benefits or did not apply for them, thus providing a more holistic signal of the strength of demand for workers. The survey is conducted weekly among a representative sample of U.S. adults. The weekly fielding period ends each Saturday, with results for that week available on Sunday.
- Began fielding: April 2020
- Frequency: Weekly
- Fielding period: Ending each Saturday
- Sample size: Approximately 20,000 adults
- Geographic coverage: United States
Morning Consult's U.S. Job Search Activity data provides an always on gauge on the jobs market by asking about job search activity; providing enhanced scale, frequency and depth not captured by official data sets. The question is asked in over 40 countries, while this chart pack provides data on only the United States.
- Began fielding: Aug. 15, 2020
- Frequency: Daily, typically reported as a 4-week moving average
- Fielding period: 4 a.m. ET to 3 a.m. ET the following day
- Sample size: Over 15,000 adults per day globally (over 5,000 per day in
the United States) - Geographic coverage: Over 40 countries
Morning Consult’s U.S. Labor Market Survey offers insights into the drivers of topline employment figures by looking under the hood at the principal motivations and intentions of workers, the unemployed and those outside the labor force. It asks questions around past, current and expected employment; unemployment insurance benefits; motivations for seeking or not seeking employment; views toward remote work and returning to the office; and willingness to relocate or change industries. The survey is fielded monthly among a representative sample of 2,200 U.S. adults. Data is collected in the first half of each month, typically between the 10th and 15th.
- Began fielding: April 2020
- Frequency: Monthly
- Fielding period: Beginning in the second week of the month and running 2-5 days
- Sample size: 2,200 adults
- Geographic coverage: United States
About the author
John Leer leads Morning Consult’s global economic research, overseeing the company’s economic data collection, validation and analysis. He is an authority on the effects of consumer preferences, expectations and experiences on purchasing patterns, prices and employment.
John continues to advance scholarship in the field of economics, recently partnering with researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland to design a new approach to measuring consumers’ inflation expectations.
This novel approach, now known as the Indirect Consumer Inflation Expectations measure, leverages Morning Consult’s high-frequency survey data to capture unique insights into consumers’ expectations for future inflation.
Prior to Morning Consult, John worked for Promontory Financial Group, offering strategic solutions to financial services firms on matters including credit risk modeling and management, corporate governance, and compliance risk management.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and philosophy with honors from Georgetown University and a master’s degree in economics and management studies (MEMS) from Humboldt University in Berlin.
His analysis has been cited in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, The Washington Post, The Economist and more.
Follow him on Twitter @JohnCLeer. For speaking opportunities and booking requests, please email [email protected]
