There are a variety of statistics to measure the strength of the labor market. A number of job boards, including CollegeRecruiter.com, regularly publish the number of job postings running on their sites under the theory that the more postings, the more employers are hiring, and therefore the stronger the labor market. Other organizations such as ADP publish payroll statistics which reveal the number of people who are being paid under the theory that the more people who are being paid, the stronger the labor market.

Each of the methods are a mere proxy in that none is a direct measurement of the number of people working. Job postings just show how many positions are being advertised for by employers. Those employers can be hiring yet not advertising. As strange as that may sound to some, those of us in the job board industry understand all too well that in periods of economic recovery, employers who are hiring have less of a need to advertise their openings than they do in stronger economic periods because the number of people who are looking for work is greater during recovery periods so those employers are more likely to receive a high quantity and quality of resumes even without buying any advertising. Payroll numbers are a better measurement as they count the number of people being paid by employers, but they don't measure the huge and increasing number of self-employed nor do they measure those who are employed but not on payroll, which often happens when employers hire illegal immigrants.