Last Friday, the Department of Labor issued its monthly jobs report for October and reported that the U.S. economy lost another 190,000 jobs in October (a number that will certainly be revised up or down in future months). October’s losses represent the 22nd straight month of monthly job losses, and unemployment rose from 9.8% to 10.2%, the highest level since 1983. Accounting for people who have given up looking for work or who want full-time work but have settled for part-time work, the unemployment rate is 17.5%. The total number of jobs lost since the Great Recession began in December of 2007 now totals 7.3 million.

There were, however, some mildly positive signs in October’s Department of Labor numbers. Hourly wages increased during the month, the number of hours worked in manufacturing rose, and temp/staffing hiring is rising. As well, the job losses in September and August were revised to show fewer job losses than initially reported. All of these statistics demonstrate that there are slight hints that the job market has bottomed out and that while recovery will likely remain anemic for months to come, we may have seen the worst. (Lest anyone get too excited, however, unemployment will likely rise for most of 2010 as monthly job losses will not only have to turn positive, they will have to turn positive to such a degree that monthly job gains actually outpace new entrants into the job market).

In any event, LinkUp’s October jobs report showed that the U.S. jobs market is improving ever so slightly. New job listings on LinkUp rose by 4% during the month and total job listings were flat from September. On a state by state basis, 33 of 50 states reported a decrease in new job listings (34 of 51 counting Washington, D.C.) and, on a slightly more positive note, 27 states showed a decrease in total job listings.

In terms of the best and worst performing states, Illinois, North Carolina, and Connecticut reported the largest increases in new and total jobs, while Massachusetts, Ohio, and West Virginia experienced the largest declines in the actual number of new and total job listings.

LinkUp, the fastest growing job search engine on the web according to recent ComScore data, only indexes job listings that are found on company websites. The October jobs report was based on a comparison between September and October job listings from 16,967 corporate websites around the U.S. As a result of this unique data source, LinkUp’s job listing data includes no duplicate job listings, no classifieds from recruiters or headhunters, and no phishing or scam ads. Even more importantly, the jobs data is based on actual job openings that companies list on their own company website rather than the openings that companies are advertising for on other job boards or in newspapers.

Continuing last Friday’s post about LinkUp’s dour jobs report for September (in which 47 states reported a decrease from August in the total number of job listings), there is equally as discouraging news on an industry by industry basis. In September, 29 of 36 industries showed a decrease from August in both new and total number of job listings on LinkUp.

LinkUp, the fastest growing job search engine on the web according to recent ComScore data, only indexes job listings that are found on company websites. The September jobs report was based on a comparison between August and September job listings from 16,861 corporate websites around the U.S. As a result of this unique data source, LinkUp’s job listing data includes no duplicate job listings, no classifieds from recruiters or headhunters, and no phishing or scam ads. Even more importantly, the jobs data is based on actual job openings that companies list on their own company website rather than the openings that companies are advertising for on other job boards or in newspapers.

The nation’s retail industry stands out as perhaps the only bright spot in the job market, while the General Management & Business, Technology, and Restaurant categories showed the largest decrease in the number of job listings.

Not surprisingly given the grim jobs report issued earlier today by the Department of Labor, LinkUp’s September jobs report showed that the U.S. jobs market continues to struggle badly. New job listings on LinkUp fell by 14% during the month and total job listings dropped by 7%. On a state by state basis, 38 of 50 states reported a decrease in new job listings (39 of 51 counting Washington, D.C.) and, even more alarmingly, 47 states showed a decrease in total job listings.

The Department of Labor reported this morning that the U.S. economy shed 263,000 jobs in September, far worse than the 175,000 that most economists were predicting. The nation’s unemployment rate rose to 9.8% and more than 15 million Americans are currently out of work. Since the recession began in late 2007, 7.2 million jobs have been lost.

LinkUp, the fastest growing job search engine on the web according to recent ComScore data, only indexes job listings that are found on company websites. The September jobs report was based on a comparison between August and September job listings from 16,861 corporate websites around the U.S. As a result of this unique data source, LinkUp’s job listing data includes no duplicate job listings, no classifieds from recruiters or headhunters, and no phishing or scam ads. Even more importantly, the jobs data is based on actual job openings that companies list on their own company website rather than the openings that companies are advertising for on other job boards or in newspapers.

In terms of the best and worst performing states, Minnesota, Arkansas, and Nevada reported the largest percentage declines in job losses, while Texas, California, and Minnesota experienced the largest declines in the actual number of new and total job listings.

Just over a month ago, the New York Times ran a story about a job scam in Minneapolis and yesterday, the State of Minnesota sued the firm and its CEO Barry Trimble for scamming hundreds and perhaps thousands of job seekers. The firm, The Arthur Group, posted ads on Careerbuilder and other job boards and searched online resumes in order to bait job seekers into coming into the office for a mock interview and a free review of their resume. After thrashing the unsuspecting job seeker, The Arthur Group would try to sell a range services to help the job seeker ‘gain a competitive edge in a difficult job market.’ After shelling out thousands of dollars, job seekers received no job offers, interviews, or assistance of any kind. The state is suing Trimble and The Arthur Group for consumer fraud and deceptive trade practices and the Attorney General hopes that victims will see some sort of restitution as a result of the suit.

I do, too. An even better outcome would be that Trimble and others like him get thrown in jail. There are job scams all over the place, and they’ve gotten much worse in the current economy. Crooks like Trimble are going to continue to rip people off and steal their money until there are real consequences for their actions. Almost as important, the job classified industry has to do a better job of policing itself and calling others out when they witness behavior that helps perpetuate consumer fraud.

When a free weekly jobs newspaper runs postal job scam ads in every single one of its weekly papers every single week of the year for a decade, there should be an industry-wide tarring and feathering that shames them into stopping the ads. When job sites charge job seekers for access to job listings that are free elsewhere on the web, they should be called out so forcefully and vocally that their businesses are forced to deliver real value or shut down. And job boards that run ads for career-related services should do a better job of screening their advertisers, removing ads when consumers complain about scam ads, and making sure that everyone in and around the industry is aware of and can specifically ban those advertisers. Similarly, job aggregation sites that pool job listings from other job boards need to do a better job of filtering out job scam ads.

Employers, too, need to pay closer attention to and be more discriminating about the kinds of publications and sites in which they run their recruitment ads. If employer advertisers showed more concern and were more willing to use the weight of their ad dollars, behavior in the industry would change very quickly.  And finally, the media needs to continue highlighting these kinds of deceptive, fraudulent practices so that consumers are aware of the risks that are inherent in posting their resumes to job boards and using pay-to-post job boards, job board aggregators, and the services that are advertised on them.

There’s an interesting discussion going on in the comment section of a recent blog post by Alison Doyle between Alison and one of her readers. Alison wrote a post entitled “A Few Good Job Sites” in which she recommended that job seekers use job search engines such as LinkUp, Indeed, and Simplyhired. In a comment, ‘Paul’ criticized these and other aggregator sites as being very frustrating for job seekers due to the preponderance of old listings and duplicate jobs. Alison, in a reply comment, correctly points out that LinkUp’s job search engine contains no duplicate or outdated job listings because LinkUp only indexes jobs from company websites. In reading the exchange, I thought I’d weigh in on how I would define and differentiate sites like LinkUp, Indeed, and Simplyhired.

A job board aggregator such as Indeed or Simplyhired, is a site that aggregates job listings from multiple websites, usually dozens or even hundreds of other sites. These job listing contain links to the original source of the job, where job seekers can then apply for that job. In the case of Indeed and Simplyhired, job listings are supplied by hundreds of job boards all over the country that deliver a data feed of the jobs listed on their sites to Indeed and Simplyhired. Those hundreds of data feeds are then amassed into a gigantic database of listings that will undoubtedly contain duplicate listings for the same job because many employers advertise their openings on multiple job boards. Equally as problematic, the job feeds that Indeed and Simplyhired accept also contain old, outdated jobs that have already been filled, and even worse, garbage jobs that include work-at-home scams, phishing jobs, scam jobs, and listings from headhunters, staffing and temp firms, and recruiters. So in that regard, comments from ‘Paul’ on Alison’s blog are absolutely correct. Aggregators that rely on data feeds from job  boards for all or most of their job listings are very, very frustrating for job seekers (and employers, too, for that matter).

But LinkUp should not be lumped into that same criticism, as Alison rightly points out. LinkUp only aggregates job listings from company websites. We index the jobs listed on career portals from over 22,000 company websites and update LinkUp every day. We do not list any jobs from other job boards. Period. As a result, LinkUp’s job listings are always current, often unadvertised anywhere else on the web, and never fake. So while I might consider LinkUp a job aggregator given the fact that we list jobs from thousands of sites around the web, I’d more accurately classify LinkUp as a job search engine.

A job search engine is a site that actively scours the web for job listings that are only found on company websites and indexes those jobs into a giant search engine. Indexing is done with ’spiders’ that crawl other websites rather than collecting a data feed supplied by someone else. And if the company doing the indexing is a considerate and responsible one (like LinkUp), that indexing is done in an open and transparent manner in the middle of the night when site traffic is low. While both Indeed and Simplyhired list jobs from larger company websites, the vast majority of their jobs are sourced from other job boards that pay for the traffic that Indeed and Simplyhired send to them.

It may seem like a minor or even trivial distinction, but the differences between aggregators like Indeed and Simplyhired and job search engines like LinkUp have a major impact on the quality of service delivered to both job seekers and employers alike.

Continuing yesterday’s post about LinkUp’s encouraging jobs data for August (in which 49 states reported an increase from July in the total number of job listings), there is equally encouraging news on an industry by industry basis. In August, 35 of 37 industries showed an increase from July in the total number of job listings on LinkUp. In terms of new job listings posted during the month, 23 sectors showed an increase from July.

LinkUp is the fastest growing job search engine on the web, indexing jobs exclusively from company websites (16,000 company websites in July). LinkUp’s index is updated every night, and does not include any job postings from other job boards. As a result, LinkUp jobs are always current, often unadvertised anywhere else on the web, and contain no duplicate listings, fake jobs, work at home scams, or other bogus jobs.

Consulting & Freelance, Insurance, and Intern positions showed the largest percentage increase in new job listings from July, while Healthcare, General Management & Business, and Administrative & Clerical showed the largest increase in the number of new job listings.

The Department of Labor released its jobs report for August last Friday,  and despite the fact that 216,000 more jobs were lost and unemployment rose to 9.7% (a 26-year high), the monthly job losses were the smallest of any month this year. The fact that we’re celebrating what would normally be considered abysmal job losses is a clear sign of how brutal the ‘Great Recession’ has been to the nation’s economy in general and the labor market in particular, but it is a sign, nevertheless, that the economy is definitely turning. And LinkUp’s jobs report from August offers further encouraging evidence.

Almost half of the states in the U.S. (including Washington, D.C.) showed an increase in the number of new job listings on LinkUp, and all but 2 states showed an increase in the number of total job listings. Overall, the number of new job listings in the U.S. was flat from July, and total job listings rose by 51,346 jobs or 11%.

LinkUp, the fastest growing job search engine on the web, indexes job listings found on only on company web sites (16,891 company sites in July). Unlike other job search engines such as Indeed or Simplyhired, LinkUp does not aggregate jobs from other job boards but rather aggregates and publishes only jobs pulled directly from company websites themselves. As a result, job listings found on LinkUp are always current, often unadvertised, and never fake. More importantly in terms of the relevancy of job listing data, there are no duplicate jobs on LinkUp because the job search engine only indexes jobs from a single source – the employer’s website itself.

In terms of the best and worst performing states, Minnesota, California, and Florida added the most new job listings, while Utah, Connecticut, and Wyoming experienced the largest declines in the actual number of new job listings.

Since LinkUp launched its Facebook app last week, I’ve spent more time than usual looking at the ways in which companies are leveraging Facebook (and social media in general) in their recruiting efforts. There are some outstanding examples of best practices and companies are really doing some amazing things. One such company is Hyatt Hotels and Resorts, who have an excellent Fan page on Facebook that is clearly a valuable component of their recruiting and talent acquisition efforts. I will admit up front that Hyatt just installed LinkUp’s Facebook app (which allows them to pull jobs from their corporate website onto their Facebook page), so while my views are most definitely biased, I think anyone looking objectively at what Hyatt is doing on Facebook would agree that they stand as a perfect case study for some important best practices.

Hyatt’s Facebook page is branded with a ‘HyattCareers’ URL, making it easy to find, the page has 8,509 fans, and there is a ton of content throughout the page. Most importantly, there is a real dialogue going on between job seekers and people within Hyatt. Comments from job seekers posted to Hyatt’s wall are answered individually in a timely manner with thorough, thoughtful replies. While most answers direct people to www.ExploreHyatt.jobs, there is usually some personalization in the answer, providing an indication that the comments are actually being read by someone who is interested in engaging with Hyatt’s fans, customers, and potential job candidates.

In terms of job listings (which are powered by LinkUp’s Facebook app ‘Current Jobs at Our Company’), Hyatt lists 968 jobs from their company career portal on their Facebook page. These jobs appear in a widget on their Wall, as well as on a separate jobs tab across the top. This makes it easy for fans and job seekers to find current opportunities at Hyatt from throughout their hotel and resort network, and each and every job listing links directly to that specific position on Hyatt’s career page where job seekers can apply for jobs straight into Hyatt’s applicant tracking system (ATS).

There is no doubt that social media is the hottest topic in recruiting these days, and Hyatt’s Facebook page perfectly demonstrates exactly why that is the case.

More so than any other large media company, the New York Times is doing a phenomenal service for the unemployed by prominently highlighting the job scams that prey on job seekers. Over the past few weeks, the Times has run a number of stories that describe the most common job scams and ripoff services that are thriving as job seekers become increasingly desperate in their job search. Unfortunately, most of these scams rely on pay-to-post job boards (especially high traffic ones) to lure unsuspecting job seekers by posting fake job ads.

In a New York Times story yesterday, the Arthur Group was identified as a scam headhunting firm that posted ads throughout Careerbuilder to attract and dupe its victims. That story accompanied a front page Times story that exposed ITS and Benchmark Professional Careers as bogus ‘career management’ or ‘career marketing’ companies that add little to no value for their clients yet charge absurdly high fees (paid up-front, of course). The companies, and others like them, have been sued by and banned from doing business in various states, but they still manage to survive and thrive like cockroaches.

In another Times piece from August 8th, entitled ‘Online Scammers Target The Jobless,’ Riva Richmond identifies the most common job scams that plague traditional pay-to-post job boards today. These scams include up-front payments for materials or training, links to online forms that result in identity theft, mystery shopper positions, work-from-home scams, and ‘money-mule’ or reshipper scams. In all of these cases, the scams rely on pay-to-post job boards (Geebo.com was cited as one example in the article) to find and dupe their victims.

In that article, one of the pieces of advice that Richmond offers is to use niche job boards rather than the large mega-job boards like Careerbuilder and Monster. This is decent advice and probably would eliminate a sizeable chunk of risk, but even better advice for job seekers would be to use job sites such as LinkUp that do not allow companies to post jobs directly onto the site. LinkUp is a job search engine that only lists jobs that are found on company and employer websites themselves. Equally as important, LinkUp also does not list job openings from other job boards (which carry the same risks therefore as the mega-job boards themselves), which makes LinkUp entirely unique among job search engines.

In any event, I applaud the New York Times for prominently highlighting the fraud that unfortunately afflicts a large portion of the recruitment advertising industry. I wish more people in our industry were doing more themselves to protect job seekers.

LinkUp just released a new Facebook application that allows companies to fully and effectively leverage the power of the world’s largest social network in their recruiting strategies. The app (which can be found here), called ‘Current Jobs At Our Company,’ allows companies to publish jobs from their corporate website to their company’s Facebook page. The app is easy to install and works automatically behind the scenes, requiring no additional work because the job listings on Facebook are updated automatically to reflect any changes to the jobs on the company’s website itself.

Most importantly, when a job seeker clicks on a job on Facebook, they are brought straight to that exact job listing on the company’s own website. The other critical aspect to LinkUp’s Facebook application is that it adds a specific ‘Jobs’ tab across the top of the company’s Faceebook page, so in effect companies and organizations can extend their exact corporate career portal from their company website onto Facebook.

As an aside, LinkUp is the fastest growing job search engine on the web according to Comscore data. We only index jobs that are found exclusively on company websites, and as a result, there are no garbage job listings, no phishing scam ads, no work-at-home scams, and no ads from 3rd party intermediaries. The site is update every day to reflect any changes on the company websites we index, so the jobs on LinkUp are always current. Equally as important, most companies do not advertise all of their jobs, so LinkUp contains a ton of jobs that cannot be found anywhere else on the web. And because we only index jobs from a single source (the company’s website itself), there are no duplicate job listings. Unlike other job search engines that primarily serve other job boards, LinkUp’s mission is to serve job seekers and employers. We are currently indexing over 21,000 company websites, and the site contains 392,436 jobs (as of today). Companies that choose to can run paid search campaigns on their job listings and pay for candidate traffic to their company website on a per-click basis.

LinkUp – always current, often unadvertised, and never fake.

For more details on LinkUp’s Facebook app for employers, click here.