Below are the top 50 most popular job titles indexed by LinkUp in May.

LinkUp is the only job search engine on the web that indexes only jobs found on corporate websites throughout the U.S. Updated daily, LinkUp’s job search engine contains over 1,000,000 job openings indexed from 25,000 company websites. Because LinkUp does not include any jobs sourced from job boards and does not allow anyone to post jobs directly to the site, the search engine does not include any garbage listings such as job scams, phishing posts, work-at-home-scams, or old listings. And because LinkUp only indexes jobs from a single source (the employer’s corporate website itself), there are no duplicate listings that pollute aggregator sites such as Indeed and Simplyhired. As a result of these entirely unique attributes, not only is LinkUp the highest quality job site for job seekers (and it’s FREE!), but our jobs data is the ‘cleanest’ in the industry, entirely unencumbered by the noise that afflicts other jobs data sets.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics won’t be releasing its jobs report for June until July 6th, and we won’t be releasing LinkUp’s forecast until the 3rd or the 4th, but in advance of those reports next week, I thought I’d provide an encouraging data point for the job market. The chart below graphs the number of job openings per company in the LinkUp index between January of 2011 and today.

Because we are constantly adding new companies to our job search engine, a raw count of jobs does not provide much insight into what’s going on in the job market. While we are extremely pleased that our search engine recently topped 1 million jobs, a lot of the increase in job openings was due to the fact that we have been aggressively adding new companies to the search engine rather than any improvement in the economy and job growth in the U.S. But as the chart below indicates, it is also true that there has been a steady increase in the average number of job openings per company in our search engine since the first of the year. (For anyone not aware of LinkUp, our job search engine only indexes jobs from corporate websites throughout the U.S. As a result of this entirely unique model, we eliminate all of the job board pollution that plagues other job sites like Monster, Indeed, and Simplyhired. That pollution, which includes things like work-at-home job scams, expired listings, duplicates, phishing jobs, lead-gen garbage, staffing and temp firms, and resume collectors, for example, creates a lot of noise in analyzing the data from a statistical perspective).

So while we all wait with bated breath for next week’s reports, there is at least some reason to be optimistic that the report will be better than last month’s abomination. Keep in mind, as well, that based on LinkUp’s jobs report in May, in which new job listings indexed by LinkUp rose by 8% and total job listings rose by 1%, we believe that the June’s report will be better than May’s. (Because a job listing posted in May is a strong indicator of an employer’s intent to make a hire, the rise in job new and total openings in May points to rising job growth in June). We will collect one more data point for May next week relating to the increase or decrease in job listings between May and June, so May’s numbers might change to some extent, but for now, there is at least some reason to be cautiously optimistic.

LinkUp announced last week that its job search engine has reached 1 million job openings indexed exclusively from company websites throughout the U.S. This is a major milestone in support of LinkUp’s mission to deliver to job seekers the largest index of high-quality job listings available on the web. By updating the index daily and only including jobs from company websites, LinkUp eliminates expired jobs, duplicate listings, phishing posts, lead-gen bait, work-at-home scams, and other job board pollution.

“Getting to 1 million jobs was a significant goal of ours in 2012,” commented Toby Dayton, President and CEO of LinkUp. “Unfortunately, we haven’t gotten much help from job growth in the U.S., so we’ve really focused our efforts on adding more company websites to our search engine.” LinkUp’s search engine now includes 25,000 company websites throughout the U.S.

One of the areas of focus for the company has been adding companies that are actively recruiting Veterans. To date, LinkUp’s search engine lists job openings from well over 1,000 companies who are currently recruiting Veterans. These large employers include companies such as Accenture, Colgate Palmolive, Ernst & Young, HP, and Pitney Bowes to name a few.

Given the challenges in the current labor market for students and recent graduates, LinkUp has also concentrated its efforts around adding companies with available internships. LinkUp.com currently lists over 10,000 available internships across a wide variety of industries including Healthcare, Retail, and Financial Services.

LinkUp started the year with 775,000 job openings on its site and reached 1 million jobs in early June. During that time, LinkUp increased the number of companies in its search engine by approximately 10%. Not surprisingly, job seekers have responded positively to the larger index as traffic to the site has increased 68% since the first of the year.

Remarked Dayton, “It’s been particularly gratifying to see the correlation between growth in our job search engine and traffic growth on LinkUp, because at the end of the day, our singular mission is to build the best job site on the web. We feel like we’re doing that and it’s nice when your users agree with you.”

About LinkUp: LinkUp provides the largest search engine that contains only job listings sourced from company websites. By eliminating pay-to-post listings and jobs aggregated from other job boards, LinkUp’s search results are free from the job pollution that afflicts other sites. There are no duplicate posts, lead-gen bait, fraudulent listings, work-at-home job scams, or phishing posts. Furthermore, the index is updated daily and does not include jobs from staffing companies, headhunters, search firms, or any other 3rd-party intermediary.

I don’t expect to get any credit for issuing an accurate forecast after the fact, but we predict that today’s job report, issued roughly 9 hours ago at 8:30 EST this morning, was worse than expected. As is the case a few times each year, the BLS report came out the morning after the last day of the month, and we were unable to run our jobs reports and issue a forecast prior to the BLS report being issued. Too bad, too, as we would have gotten it pretty much right – unlike our spotty record of late. HAD we been able to conduct our analysis and issue our forecast prior to the BLS release, however, this is approximately what we would have said….

According to LinkUp’s jobs data for April and May, we are forecasting that only 15,000 jobs were created in May, down from the 115,000 jobs created in April. This is far worse than the consensus forecast of 150,000 jobs being created, and we anticipate that markets will react accordingly on the horrible jobs numbers.

Based on LinkUp’s jobs data from May, however, we expect that the government’s jobs report for June, issued on July 6th, will show some improvement. In May, new job listings on LinkUp rose 9% from April, climbing from roughly 350,000 to 380,000. Total job openings on company websites across the country rose 4% from 894,000 in April to 928,000 in May. Most encouragingly, 44 states showed increases in new and total job openings.

As background, LinkUp is the only job search engine on the web that indexes only jobs found on corporate websites throughout the U.S. Updated daily, LinkUp’s job search engine contains almost 1 million job openings indexed from 25,000 company websites. Because LinkUp does not include any jobs sourced from job boards and does not allow anyone to post jobs directly to the site, the search engine does not include any garbage listings such as job scams, phishing posts, work-at-home-scams, lead-gen bait, or old listings. And because LinkUp only indexes jobs from a single source (the employer’s corporate website itself), there are no duplicate listings that pollute aggregator sites such as Indeed and Simplyhired. As a result of these entirely unique attributes, not only is LinkUp the highest quality job site for job seekers (and it’s FREE!), but our jobs data is the ‘cleanest’ in the industry, entirely unencumbered by the noise that afflicts other jobs data sets.

In terms of jobs by category, the data was exactly the same. New jobs by category rose 9% and total jobs rose 4%.

Based on the jobs data from LinkUp’s job search engine in May, combined with this morning’s jobs report for May and the revisions that were made to prior months, I’ll take the liberty of revising our forecast for June’s jobs report to show that the U.S. economy will have added 150,000 jobs during the month. June’s numbers won’t be great and not nearly enough to make a meaningful dent in the unemployment rate, but they’ll certainly be far better than this morning’s poke in the eye.

Despite the scare that ADP gave everyone this week, tomorrow’s jobs report from the BLS will be far better than the anemic consensus estimates for job growth in April. Economists are predicting that only 165,000 jobs were created in April in the U.S., but based on LinkUp’s jobs numbers in March, we are forecasting that 245,000 jobs were added last month. In March, new job listings in LinkUp’s jobs search engine (which only indexes jobs from company websites) rose 11% and total job openings rose 5%. (Because a job opening posted on a company website is a great predictor of a future hire, it is March’s job openings that provide the indicator for April’s job growth).

Unfortunately, LinkUp’s jobs data for April is far less encouraging. New job openings fell 9% last month, while total job openings were flat from March. (The numbers in the table above are slightly different because they include the average of our 2 data points for March in our ‘paired month’ methodology). Based on LinkUp’s data for April, we are predicting that job growth in May will slow down and that only 130,000 jobs will be added next month.

In terms of jobs by state, new job openings declined in 43 states but total jobs only fell in 21 states.

In terms of jobs by category, new job listings increased in only 3 categories, but total job listings increased in 15 categories.

LinkUp is the only job search engine on the web that indexes only jobs found on corporate websites throughout the U.S. Updated daily, LinkUp’s job search engine contains over 900,000 job openings indexed from 23,500 company websites. Because LinkUp does not include any jobs sourced from job boards and does not allow anyone to post jobs directly to the site, the search engine does not include any garbage listings such as job scams, phishing posts, work-at-home-scams, lead-gen bait, or old listings. And because LinkUp only indexes jobs from a single source (the employer’s corporate website itself), there are no duplicate listings that pollute aggregator sites such as Indeed and Simplyhired. As a result of these entirely unique attributes, not only is LinkUp the highest quality job site for job seekers (and it’s FREE!), but our jobs data is the ‘cleanest’ in the industry, entirely unencumbered by the noise that afflicts other jobs data sets.

Tomorrow’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will come in very close to the consensus estimates of roughly 200,000 jobs created in March. Based on data from LinkUp’s job search engine in February, a month in which new and total job openings on company websites throughout the U.S. fell by 11.5% and 2.1% respectively, we do not expect any significant surprises in March’s numbers. Unemployment might stay the same or even rise to some degree as formerly ‘discouraged’ job seekers are now re-entering the job market, therefore increasing the numerator in that calculation. But beyond the headline numbers, we expect that the BLS will revise upward their numbers for February to 300,000 jobs created. That’s a critical new ‘highwater’ mark since the recovery began some time ago and will deliver a strong signal that the improving labor market is far more substantial this spring than last when the ‘green shoots’ everyone was raving about were swiftly mowed down later in the year.

Even more importantly, based on LinkUp’s jobs numbers for March, we are forecasting that in April the U.S. economy will add 350,000 jobs. In March, new job openings on 23,500 company websites throughout the U.S. rose 13% while total job openings on those company websites rose 8%.

LinkUp is the only job search engine on the web that indexes only jobs found on corporate websites throughout the U.S. Updated daily, LinkUp’s job search engine contains over 900,000 job openings indexed from 23,500 company websites. Because LinkUp does not include any jobs sourced from job boards and does not allow anyone to post jobs directly to the site, the search engine does not include any garbage listings such as job scams, phishing posts, work-at-home-scams, lead-gen bait, or old listings. And because LinkUp only indexes jobs from a single source (the employer’s corporate website itself), there are no duplicate listings that pollute aggregator sites such as Indeed and Simplyhired. As a result of these entirely unique attributes, not only is LinkUp the highest quality job site for job seekers (and it’s FREE!), but our jobs data is the ‘cleanest’ in the industry, entirely unencumbered by the noise that afflicts other jobs data sets.

For the 2nd time in the past 3 months, both new and total job openings rose in all 50 states.

While not quite as uniform as the job openings by state, the number of categories showing an increase in new and total job openings was nearly as impressive.

So based on LinkUp’s jobs numbers for the first quarter, I would say that the green shoots we are seeing this year look more like buckthorn.

Below is the list of the top 50 job openings on LinkUp’s job search engine in February.

LinkUp is the only job search engine on the web that indexes only jobs found on corporate websites throughout the U.S. Updated daily, LinkUp’s job search engine contains 860,000 job openings indexed from 22,000 company websites. Because LinkUp does not include any jobs sourced from job boards and does not allow anyone to post jobs directly to the site, the search engine does not include any garbage listings such as job scams, phishing posts, work-at-home-scams, or old listings. And because LinkUp only indexes jobs from a single source (the employer’s corporate website itself), there are no duplicate listings that pollute aggregator sites such as Indeed and Simplyhired. As a result of these entirely unique attributes, not only is LinkUp the highest quality job site for job seekers (and it’s FREE!), but our jobs data is the ‘cleanest’ in the industry, entirely unencumbered by the noise that afflicts other jobs data sets.

With a 57% jump in new job listings in January and a 23% jump in total job listings in LinkUp’s job search engine last month, we are forecasting that the U.S. economy added 260,000 jobs in February. While our forecast is above the consensus estimate of job growth of 210,000 in February, we remain confident that tomorrow’s BLS report will surprise to the upside. In part, our forecast is based on the assumption that the Department of Labor has overestimated job growth for at least the past 3 months, and that tomorrow’s report will revise downward the numbers for December and January. If job growth in those months is not revised down, it is likely that tomorrow’s numbers will come in even higher than 260,000.

Unfortunately, LinkUp’s data for February indicates that March’s jobs report will not be as positive.

As background, LinkUp is the only job search engine on the web that indexes only jobs found on corporate websites throughout the U.S. Updated daily, LinkUp’s job search engine contains 860,000 job openings indexed from 22,000 company websites. Because LinkUp does not include any jobs sourced from job boards and does not allow anyone to post jobs directly to the site, the search engine does not include any garbage listings such as job scams, phishing posts, work-at-home-scams, or old listings. And because LinkUp only indexes jobs from a single source (the employer’s corporate website itself), there are no duplicate listings that pollute aggregator sites such as Indeed and Simplyhired. As a result of these entirely unique attributes, not only is LinkUp the highest quality job site for job seekers (and it’s FREE!), but our jobs data is the ‘cleanest’ in the industry, entirely unencumbered by the noise that afflicts other jobs data sets.

In February, new job listings on company websites throughout the country fell by 14% from January and total job listings dropped 4% from the prior month. 47 states saw a decline in new jobs and 27 saw a drop in total job listings.

In terms of jobs by category, new job listings fell by 17% and total jobs dropped 5% from January. Job openings on company websites fell in 20 of the 31 categories tracked by LinkUp, while total job openings declined in 14 of 31 categories. The healthcare sector was particularly hard hit, accounting for the vast majority of the fall-off in new job listings and 100% of the decline in total job listings.

So tomorrow, look for a very good jobs report but keep in mind that job growth in March will likely slow down a bit. Given the experience of last spring when the ‘green shoots’ everyone was talking about were annihilated by a massive dose of Round-Up in subsequent months, it’s tough to get too excited about a single month’s numbers. Hopefully this year we’ll see more robust and sustained job growth.

It’s hard to imagine that the muddled jobs picture could possibly get any murkier, but it is. Between ADP’s ‘Purge Effect,’ archaic seasonality adjustments (i.e., UPS and FedEx are still not fully accounted for in seasonal holiday hiring models), constant backwards revisions from the Department of Labor (a game ADP is now even playing), and a baffling initial December jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get an accurate sense of what is going on with the nation’s jobs picture. And while tomorrow’s jobs report may not provide much clarity, there is little doubt that based on LinkUp’s jobs data for January, the picture will not only get a lot clearer in February, everyone in the country (with the possible exception of Mitt Romney) will be ecstatic about what that picture looks like.

But before we get to February, I’ll start with our prediction for tomorrow’s BLS data for January. Based on LinkUp’s jobs data from December, we are forecasting that the U.S. economy added 20,000 jobs more than whatever the country added in December. I say that not to be cute, but because our model is based on the change in job growth or decline from the prior month. So if the BLS does not revise the numbers it reported for December (job growth of 200,000), then we predict that the economy added 220,000 jobs in January. However, if the BLS revises its December numbers down (as we believe they will and should), then our forecast is that January’s job growth will be 20,000 higher than whatever they revise it to. (Unfortunately, they will most likely revise December’s numbers again in the February Employment Situation report that will be released in March).

But far more critical than the January numbers, which will be pretty milquetoast in any event, will be the revisions to the November and December numbers. Based on LinkUp’s jobs data from Q4 ’11, there is no conceivable way that the U.S. economy added 300,000 full-time jobs in November and December. In fact, our model indicates that the U.S. economy actually lost 60,000 jobs in the final 2 months of the year.

If tomorrow’s BLS revisions reflect the fact that job growth has been negative or even significantly more muted than previously reported, I have to believe that the markets will respond accordingly. Having said that, however, the bearish sentiment will be short-lived given LinkUp’s jobs data for January. Based on the 50% increase in new job listings from company websites and the 19% gain in total job listings on company websites, combined with the fact that all 50 states saw increases in both new and total job listings, the BLS report for February will undoubtedly be the most positive employment report the country has seen in years.

For background purposes, LinkUp is the only job search engine on the web that indexes only jobs found on corporate websites throughout the U.S. Updated daily, LinkUp’s job search engine contains 830,000 job openings indexed from 22,000 company websites. Because LinkUp does not include any jobs sourced from job boards and does not allow anyone to post jobs directly to the site, the search engine does not include any garbage listings such as job scams, phishing posts, work-at-home-scams, or old listings. And because LinkUp only indexes jobs from a single source (the employer’s corporate website itself), there are no duplicate listings that pollute aggregator sites such as Indeed and Simplyhired. As a result of these entirely unique attributes, not only is LinkUp the highest quality job site for job seekers (and it’s FREE!), but our jobs data is the ‘cleanest’ in the industry, entirely unencumbered by the noise that afflicts other jobs data sets.

The jobs by category numbers in January were equally as positive, with 30 of 31 categories reporting increases in new job listings and all 31 categories reporting increases in total job openings.

Based on LinkUp’s fantastically positive jobs data from January, we are forecasting that the U.S. economy will add 150,000 more jobs in February than whatever the number is for January. At the moment, without accounting for any revisions that might take place tomorrow or next month, that number would be 370,000 jobs created in February.

And no matter what happens in tomorrow’s report with data from November, December, and January, it is absolutely certain that the jobs picture is finally starting to improve and that, furthermore, the rate of improvement is accelerating. I’d even go so far as to state that what we are seeing indicates that employment rolls will snap back faster than almost all the pundits are predicting, and that the end of the Great Recession might actually start coming into view. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Even Mitt would have to cheer for that.

Cheering for a positive jobs report from the Department of Labor these days is quite similar to cheering for the Minnesota Vikings of late; I’m always hopeful but there just isn’t much in the statistics to get too encouraged about. And unfortunately, the November jobs data published by LinkUp a month ago doesn’t bode well for this Friday’s BLS report for December. On a more positive note, however, our jobs data for December presents at least a glimmer of hope that the nation’s jobs picture might improve slightly in January.

I’ll start with November’s LinkUp jobs data that we use in our model to predict actual job growth for December. Given the fact that a job posted on a company’s website is the best leading indicator of a future hire, combined with the fact that the average job opening indexed by LinkUp remains open for 27 days, it is November’s job openings data that translates into the jobs numbers for December.

So in November, new job listings in LinkUp’s job search engine (which today includes 765,000 job listings indexed directly from 22,000 company websites) dropped 19% from the prior month while total job listings fell 6%. November was the 3rd consecutive month of declines in both new and total job openings, and the number of new job listings for the month was 50% fewer than January of 2011.

Given the steady decline of new and total job listings in Q4, we are forecasting that Friday’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) at the Department of Labor will be far worse than consensus forecast which calls for job growth of 155,000 jobs in December. Equally as negative, we predict that the BLS will revise down their numbers for November of last year. A month ago, the government reported that 120,000 jobs were created in November, but our model indicates that, in fact, no net job growth occurred during the month. (For a much more extensive explanation of what we see as an inevitable downward revision, read my previous blog post here).

Combining the downward revision for November to zero and the LinkUp data for December, we are forecasting that the U.S. lost 100,000 jobs in December. I’ll hedge my bet a bit by stating that if BLS revises their November numbers to a lesser extent than what we anticipate, or not at all, the job growth for December will be 100,000 jobs fewer than whatever the final BLS number is for November. (As an aside, following the 11 initial monthly BLS jobs reports for 2011 issued so far, there have been 17 revisions, and they could still revise November again next month when they release their jobs report for January).

(The percentages for new and total jobs in LinkUp are different than what I reported earlier because the chart above is the average of the two job counts we capture for a given month – the first comparing it to the prior month and the second comparing it to the following month).

Two other charts provide additional cause for concern regarding this week’s jobs report that are worth highlighting. The first is the average number of job openings per company in the LinkUp job search engine, and the second is the total number of jobs in our job search engine since 2007 (which also includes a rolling 90-day average).

As is evident, both graphs clearly indicate that the positive (albeit still anemic) job growth that occurred in the first 3 quarters of 2011 has come to a screeching halt in Q4. Fortunately, our jobs data for December provides a glimmer of hope that things might improve just slightly in January.

In December, new job growth was flat from November, while total job growth declined by 2%. Neither data point provides much to get excited about, but they are definitely better than the numbers from the prior 3 months. The other positive news is that 23 states showed an increase in new job openings. (…funny quirk that states beginning with M showed particularly strong growth in new job listings: Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, and Montana).

In terms of jobs by category, new job openings rose 1% while total jobs declined by 1%. Like new jobs by state, roughly half of the job categories we track reported an increase in new job listings, led by Oil, Gas & Utilities, Maintenance & Repair, and Aerospace, Aviation, & Defense.

As background, LinkUp is the only job search engine on the web that indexes only jobs found on corporate websites throughout the U.S. Updated daily, LinkUp’s job search engine contains 765,000 job openings indexed from 22,000 company websites. Because LinkUp does not include any jobs sourced from job boards and does not allow anyone to post jobs directly to the site, the search engine does not include any garbage listings such as job scams, phishing posts, work-at-home-scams, or old listings. And because LinkUp only indexes jobs from a single source (the employer’s corporate website itself), there are no duplicate listings that pollute aggregator sites such as Indeed and Simplyhired. As a result of these entirely unique attributes, not only is LinkUp the highest quality job site for job seekers, but our jobs data is the ‘cleanest’ in the industry, entirely free of the noise that afflicts other jobs data sets.

So expect a bleak report on Friday, but rest assured that things will be a tad better in January. And who knows, maybe next year the Vikings will be back in the NFC finals. In the meantime, GO WILD!