Critical and analytical thinking are key in current job market
The fastest growing soft skills in U.S. job openings are communication, coordination, and analytical thinking. These and the other skills in the top ten reflect an increasingly complex business and economic environment. The ability to assess a situation, act strategically, and communicate effectively regardless of market changes and incomplete information remains essential to employers today.
Smallest companies see sharpest decline in job openings
The U.S. job market has seen a notable shift over the past year, with a greater share of job openings coming from medium and large companies. Specifically, companies with 200-599 employees hold a 16% larger share of total job opportunities compared to October of last year. While organizations with more than 200 employees are posting more roles overall, smaller companies (those with fewer than 200 employees) have seen job openings decline, potentially reflecting growth challenges amid ongoing economic headwinds.
Methodology
Market IQ collects job postings daily from over 7 million+ websites in the U.S. Our system automatically identifies, extracts, and structures job data into 100+ attributes using Textkernel’s AI powered parsing technology. Each posting is normalized against professional taxonomies, enriched with company information, and deduplicated using sophisticated algorithms to identify unique job opportunities. The system maintains high levels of accuracy through automated quality controls and continuous improvement processes, making it a trusted source for U.S. labor market insights.
Skills
Market IQ utilizes Textkernel’s proprietary Skills Normalization Taxonomy (SNT) to extract and normalize skills from job postings. Our taxonomy encompasses 13,200+ unique skill concepts mapped through 250,000+ terms, covering professional skills, IT skills, soft skills, and languages. Using advanced machine learning, the system identifies skills in context, disambiguates ambiguous terms, and normalizes them to standardized concepts—enabling accurate cross-market analysis regardless of how employers phrase skill requirements. The taxonomy is continuously updated quarterly based on millions of job postings, market feedback, and labor market trends. This data-driven approach ensures Market IQ captures both established and emerging skills as they appear in the U.S. job market, providing unparalleled insights into skill demand across industries and regions. All analysis of skills excludes any skills that appear in fewer than 10,000 job descriptions.
