Story Highlights
- Index remains at +32 for fifth consecutive month
- Government and nongovernment hiring both steady
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gallup's U.S. Job Creation Index registered +32 in September for the fifth consecutive month. This is the highest score Gallup has recorded since it began measuring employees' perceptions of job creation at their workplaces in early 2008.
Shortly after Gallup began tracking job creation, the index nosedived as the Great Recession wreaked havoc on the economy. After remaining in negative territory for most of 2009, the index slowly recovered, reaching +30 in September 2014. It then dipped slightly and stayed between +27 and +29 over the next six months. It increased to +31 in April and another point in May to reach the current high, which it has held since.
The results are based on interviews with 17,284 U.S. full- and part-time workers conducted Sept. 1-30 as part of Gallup Daily tracking. Gallup asks employed workers nationwide each day whether their employer is increasing, reducing or maintaining the size of its workforce. In September, 43% of workers said their employer was hiring workers and expanding the size of its workforce, and 11% said their employer was letting people go and reducing the size of its workforce, resulting in the index score of +32. The "hiring" and "letting people go" percentages have been steady for the last several months.
Government, Nongovernment Hiring Both Steady in September
Net hiring in the private sector, where the large majority of U.S. employees work, was +33 for the month of September, the same it has been for five of the past six months.
Government hiring netted +25 in September -- similar to scores recorded since April.
Regionally, net hiring was lowest in the East, at +29. The region generally has ranked lowest in workers' perceptions of hiring since 2013. Meanwhile, the Midwest had the highest net hiring score in September, at +34. This is down slightly from +36 in August, which matched the highest score any region has received since Gallup began tracking job creation. Net hiring in the South registered +32, while it was +33 in the West.
These data are available in Gallup Analytics.
Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews conducted Sept. 1-30, 2015, on Gallup Daily tracking, with a random sample of 17,284 adults, aged 18 and older, who are employed full or part time, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. For results based on the total sample of national adults, the margin of sampling error is ±1 percentage point at the 95% confidence level. All reported margins of sampling error include computed design effects for weighting.
Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 60% cellphone respondents and 40% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cellular telephone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods.
Learn more about how Gallup Daily tracking works.
