As official data stalls, real-time job ads reveal a cooling labor market with rising demand for AI skills

With the federal government shut down since October 1, 2025, crucial data releases have been delayed, which businesses and policymakers rely on to assess growth strategies and workforce needs. In addition, since the 2020 pandemic, response rates for surveys conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) have been in decline, leading to large data revisions and hurting public confidence in the monthly Current Employment Statistics (CES) estimates.

In an environment characterized by political and economic uncertainty, it is vital to have access to valid, reliable, and up-to-date labor market data.

Job postings are a good indicator to watch as a barometer of the labor market. They have the advantage of being updated daily and they are a leading indicator of employment trends because businesses don’t post job ads unless they expect demand for their goods and services to continue to increase. In the absence of official government data, it can be used to gauge the direction of the market.

Job postings data, similar to BLS data, imply a general weakening in hiring activities. According to job postings data for the United States during the last 12 months, from Chmura Economics & Analytics’ JobsEQ technology platform, active ads peaked during the week of November 11, 2024 at 8.3 million and have since fallen 30% to 5.8 million during the week of October 13, 2025.

The decline in job postings in Virginia over the same period has been a similar 29% from 273,472 posts in the week of November 11, 2024 to 194,516 posts most recently. The trends are also comparable in the Richmond metro area over the same period with job postings down 30%.

Drilling down for more details, in Virginia, job ads for both white-collar and blue-collar jobs each dropped about 30% from the recent peak in November 2024 to Mid-October 2025, while ads for service jobs dropped 23%. In the nation, however, blue-collar job ads dropped a larger 36% over the last year compared with a drop of 31% for white-collar ads and 25% for service jobs. The smaller drop in white-collar ads may be related to the demand for AI-related skills around the country. Job ads requiring skills in “artificial intelligence” increased 19% over the same period.

Just because the overall labor market is cooling does not mean that demand for every occupation is weakening. Prominent occupations in health care and information technology that have been hard to fill are associated with the largest number of job ads in the state and they pay well. In particular, software developers, computer and information systems managers, and network and computer systems administrators each pay an annual wage of more than $100,000.

In the short-term, job posting data can fill the gap of official government data. Similar to the BLS that showed national employment growth falling from 158,000 in April to 19,000 in May and even lower in June, Chmura’s job postings dropped significantly during April and have been relatively flat through August which represents the last report from BLS.

Job postings increased somewhat in September and continued to rise at a modest pace in October. Similar to the nation, posts in Virginia were relatively flat through August and increased somewhat in September and October.

Even without federal government reports, alternative analytics such as the Chmura’s job postings provide evidence that the labor market continues to grow.

Sourse: JobsEQ by Chmura