Online hiring practices have evolved, with employers increasingly relying on the web for recruitment processes and the extent to which they're pursuing this method.

The job market in 2025 has seen some interesting shifts compared to pre-pandemic levels. Despite a cooling down in the job opening rate, it remains elevated compared to historical norms, a trend that has been observed in advanced economies like the US.

Since the onset of the pandemic, job postings on platforms like Indeed and official measures of openings have remained stable in the US and other advanced economies. In fact, between January 2015 and January 2020, job postings on Indeed more than doubled in the US, a testament to the growing popularity of online job recruitment.

The company behind Indeed, Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd., published more than twice as many job listings as the official Bureau of Labor Statistics' Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) in the USA during this period. This shift towards online job boards could be attributed to the declining cost to post a job vacancy, making it more affordable for employers to start candidate searches.

However, there's a disconnect between job openings and hiring. US job openings have remained cyclical and have trended upward, but the job vacancy yield (ratio of hires per job opening) has declined significantly. This could be due to the greater ease of posting a job, leading to a surplus of job postings and making it tougher for job seekers to land work.

The labor market in 2025 has also shown employers taking longer to fill job postings compared to 2022. This could be due to the increase in "low intensity" job openings, a result of falling posting costs.

Despite these challenges, studies suggest that the internet has helped job seekers find work faster. Technological change has also improved the match-quality of jobs ultimately started. In Canada, for instance, online job boards were used for 76% of job vacancies in 2019, a significant increase from 67% in 2015.

The unemployment rate in Q1 2025 was on average 0.4 percentage points higher than in 2018 and 2019, despite the job openings rate being the same. This suggests that job seekers today might find it tougher to land work than expected, given still somewhat plentiful job postings.

Stabilization in the job opening rate will be an important milestone to look out for among those seeking a shift in market dynamics back in job seekers' favor. As we move forward, it will be interesting to see how the job market evolves and how job seekers and employers adapt to these changes.

Online hiring practices have evolved, with employers increasingly relying on the web for recruitment processes and the extent to which they're pursuing this method.