YourJobs data methodology: how pay and hiring facts are calculated

By YourJobs Editorial · Version 1.1 · Published 20 October 2026 · Last updated 20 October 2026

This page defines every statistic on the YourJobs pay, employer and hiring-facts pages, and describes how pay is read from job postings. Based on 796,899 postings on yourjobs.com between 20 September and 20 October 2026, of which 61% stated pay. The headline measure is the median advertised hourly rate: what employers stated they would pay in new postings, not what workers earn.

What the data is

The data is the set of job postings on yourjobs.com. Postings arrive from the ClickCast feed, which refreshes hourly. We read the postings ourselves: nothing is bought from a third-party salary database and nothing is estimated by a model. A daily job writes one row per posting to a facts table and rolls it up into the monthly tables that the pages and CSV files read.

What we record per posting

The date we first saw the posting, its title, employer name as posted, and the employer id where the feed provides one.
City, state and ZIP code.
The occupation: SOC 2018 major group and detailed code, plus the feed's own category.
Employment type (full time, part time, per diem, contract, temporary, internship) where it can be read. It is taken from the feed's job type field, or failing that from the title and the first 1,200 characters of the description.
A remote flag: 1 if the title or location says remote, 2 if only the description says fully remote or work from home, 0 otherwise.
A sign-on bonus flag, set when the text contains a phrase such as "sign-on bonus" or "signing bonus".
The pay figure, if one is found: minimum and maximum as stated, the period, whether the period was stated or inferred, the hourly and annual equivalents, and a short snippet of posting text around the figure.
The feed's cost-per-click value and, when a posting disappears, the date it closed. Neither is used in any published statistic.

How pay is read

Pay is read by a deterministic parser, with no model and no guessing. The same posting always gives the same result. The rules, in the order they apply:

Text. The posting's HTML is reduced to plain text: tags removed, character entities decoded, en dashes, em dashes and minus signs turned into hyphens, spaces collapsed. The title and the description are searched separately.
Amounts and ranges. A candidate is a dollar sign followed by a number, with optional thousands commas, up to two decimals and an optional K suffix (28.50, 85,000, $85K). A range is two amounts joined by a hyphen, "to", "and", "through" or "up to"; the second dollar sign is optional. A range is stored as its lower and higher value.
Period words. The parser looks directly after the amount for a period word, optionally introduced by "per", "/", "a", "an", "each" or "every": hour, hr, hrs, hourly; year, yr, yrs, annum, annual, annually; week, wk, weekly; day, daily; month, mo, monthly. If there is none, it looks at the 48 characters before and 32 after for "hourly", "per hour" or "an hour" (hourly), and for "annual", "annually", "per year", "a year" or "salary of" (yearly). All of these count as stated.
Inferred periods. With no period word at all, only two sizes are accepted, with tighter floors than stated figures because small amounts with no period are usually differentials or incentives rather than pay. A bare number from 10 to 150 is read as hourly. A number from 22,000 to 1,000,000 is read as yearly. A number with a K suffix is read as yearly only if it falls in that yearly band. Anything else is discarded. Stated figures keep the legal floors (7.25 an hour, 15,000 a year). These are recorded as inferred, and every pay page publishes the share of its figures that were stated rather than inferred.
Exclusions. A candidate is dropped if any of these words appears within 48 characters before it or 32 after it: bonus, sign-on (also written sign on, signon or signing), referral, stipend, reimbursement, allowance, tuition, 401, match, deductible, premium, fee, cost, save, discount, price, million, billion, revenue, budget, credit, gift, "per diem rate", mileage, cents, incentive, differential (including shift, weekend and night differentials), insurance, retention, relocation, milestone, anniversary, additional, extra, "on top", added, potential, commission, award, scholarship, coverage, benefit. A figure written with a leading plus sign (+$5.00/hr) is an add-on and is skipped. A figure quoted per visit, case, session, shift, mile, load, trip, delivery, unit, point, class, lesson, patient, client, job, ride, order, route or stop is not comparable with hourly or yearly pay and is skipped.
Sanity bounds. Both ends of the amount must fall inside a plausible range for the period, or the candidate is dropped. Per hour: 7.25 to 500. Per day: 58 to 5,000. Per week: 290 to 20,000. Per month: 1,250 to 85,000. Per year: 15,000 to 1,000,000.
Which candidate wins. Each surviving candidate gets a score: 3 points if the period was stated; 2 if a pay word (pay, paid, salary, wage, rate, compensation, earn, earning, starting, range, offer, hourly, annual, per hour, per year) appears in the 48 characters before it; 1 if it is a range; 2 if it came from the title; minus 1 for every 4,000 characters into the text, to a maximum of minus 2. The highest score wins. On a tie the earlier candidate wins, title before description. A posting contributes at most one pay figure.

Normalisation

Every stated amount is converted to an hourly equivalent: hourly amounts are used as they are; daily amounts are divided by 8; weekly amounts by 40; monthly amounts are multiplied by 12 and divided by 2,080; yearly amounts are divided by 2,080. That is 2,080 hours a year (40 x 52), 40 hours a week and 8 hours a day. Hourly values are rounded to the cent. Annual equivalents are the hourly value multiplied by 2,080, rounded to the dollar. For a range, the posting's value in every statistic is the midpoint of its hourly minimum and maximum.

Definitions

Posting: One job posting first seen by yourjobs.com in the feed. A posting that the employer or the feed lists again as new is counted again: we do not merge re-listed postings, so counts can include repeats of the same vacancy.
Postings with pay: Postings from which the parser read a valid pay figure. The share stating pay is postings with pay divided by postings.
Median advertised hourly rate: The median of the hourly midpoints of postings with pay, within the stated scope (an occupation, a state, or both). Published only when at least 30 postings in the scope stated pay.
25th and 75th percentile: The values a quarter and three quarters of the way up the same ordered list of hourly midpoints. The "middle half of postings" is the range between them. Same publishing threshold as the median.
Highest advertised rate we recorded: The largest hourly maximum among postings with pay in the scope. It is one posting, always shown with its title, employer, place, date first seen and the pay text, and it is not a typical rate and not a claim about the best-paid job. It can be a rare role or an error in the posting.
Employers: Distinct employer names as posted. Spelling variants and subsidiaries of one company count separately.
30-day window: Postings first seen in the 30 days up to and including the day the page was built. Every page prints the dates.
Month: The calendar month in which a posting was first seen. The current month is incomplete until it ends.
Stated and inferred periods: The share of pay figures whose period came from a period word or an hourly or annual phrase (stated) rather than from the size of the amount (inferred).
Full-time, part-time, remote and sign-on shares: The share of postings in the scope carrying that flag, as recorded above.

Incentives

The incentives pages (hiring incentives and one page per occupation) count how many postings mention a hiring incentive and what amount the posting states. They measure what employers advertised. They do not show who was offered, who received, or what was paid.

What is recorded

The same plain text as the pay parser is searched (title first, then description) for these phrases. Each is a flag on the posting, with an amount where one is stated.

Sign-on bonus: "sign-on bonus", "sign on bonus", "signing bonus" (also "sign-on incentive", "sign-on/retention bonus", "signing and retention bonuses"), "hiring bonus", "hiring incentive", "new hire bonus". A posting mentions a sign-on bonus when the older sign-on flag is set (phrase "sign-on bonus" or "signing bonus") or when a sign-on amount was read.
Retention bonus: "retention bonus" (also retention incentive, payment, award). Flag only on the pages.
Relocation: "relocation assistance", "relocation package", "relocation bonus", "relocation reimbursement", "relocation allowance" and similar. "No relocation", "relocation assistance is not available", "relocation required" and "relocation specialist" are not counted.
Referral bonus: "referral bonus" (also referral incentive, award, reward, payment).
Tuition support: "tuition reimbursement", "tuition assistance" and close variants (tuition benefit, repayment, forgiveness, discount, "tuition, books and fees paid"). "No tuition fees are required" is not counted.
Shift differential: "shift differential", "weekend differential", "night differential" and similar ("holiday", "evening", "overnight", "on-call", "pay differential"). "Differential diagnosis" is not counted.

How an amount is read

Which figure belongs to which phrase. A dollar figure belongs to an incentive phrase only when nothing but connecting words sits between them: "bonus of up to $10,000", "$20,000 sign on bonus", "relocation up to $10,000", "$10,000 in relocation assistance". A figure is attached to the nearest phrase. A figure that follows a phrase may be at most 80 characters after it (60 for differentials); a figure that precedes a phrase may be at most 30 characters before it. Digits, a sentence end, a separator such as "+" or "|", or any other word between the figure and the phrase break the link. So "Relocation assistance available CME allowance of $6,000" gives relocation no amount.
Pay is not a bonus. A figure followed by a period word ("$29 per hour", "$450,000 annually") is pay and is never taken as a bonus, except that tuition amounts may be yearly limits and differentials are hourly. A figure after salary, base, wage, rate, range, guarantee or compensation words, or before base, salary, buy-in, guarantee, FTE or RVU, is never taken.
Forms of a figure. "$5,000", "$ 5,000", "$5K" and "5K" directly before a sign-on phrase are read. "K" means thousands. A range ("$5,000-$10,000") takes the upper figure. The words "up to" are kept: the figure is then the stated maximum, and the pages say "stated bonus, up to".
Sanity bounds. Bonus, relocation, referral, retention and tuition amounts must lie between $100 and $100,000. A differential must lie between $0.25 and $25.00 an hour. Outside the bounds the flag stays and the amount is dropped. A percentage ("10% differential") sets the flag only.
One amount per type. If several figures attach to one phrase type in a posting, the largest is kept. Each posting contributes at most one amount per incentive type, plus a snippet of about 160 characters of its own text that the pages show as evidence.

Definitions

Mentions an incentive (share): Postings in the scope carrying that flag, divided by postings in the scope. Published only where the scope holds at least 30 postings in the 30-day window.
Stated amount: The figure read for that incentive in a posting, as written. It is often a maximum ("up to") and the conditions (full-time only, experience, start date, repayment terms) are not captured.
Median stated amount: The middle value of the stated amounts in the scope. Published only where at least 30 postings stated an amount. The 75th percentile follows the same rule.
Largest we recorded: The largest stated sign-on amount in the scope, always shown with the posting's title, employer, place, date first seen and its own words. It is one posting, not a typical bonus.
Ranking tables: List only occupations or states with at least 100 postings in the window. An occupation page exists where the window holds at least 30 postings for it. Months and the 30-day window follow the definitions above.

Limits specific to incentives

An amount is what the posting says, usually a maximum. Many postings mention an incentive without an amount, so shares are larger than the share with an amount.
Eligibility is not captured: a bonus may apply only to some locations, shifts, experience levels or internal transfers, and may be repayable.
Wording varies. A posting that describes an incentive in words outside the phrases above is not counted, so shares are a floor.
A list that gives several amounts for one incentive (by experience level, say) contributes its largest.
Re-listed postings are counted again, as for every statistic on these pages.
Postings first seen before the incentives step was added are filled in by a re-run over postings still active; earlier months may be incomplete.

Thresholds

A median or percentile is shown only if at least 30 postings in that scope stated pay. Below that the cell is left blank.
A pay page exists only if the 30-day window holds at least 30 postings for that occupation and place. Other addresses return not found.
An employer appears in a ranking only with at least 5 postings in the scope.

Known limits

Advertised pay is not earned pay. Postings often state a range or a starting rate, and the hired person may be paid differently.
Coverage is the ClickCast feed. Employers that do not post through it are absent, and the mix of employers differs from the whole labour market.
Postings that state pay are not a random sample. States and occupations with pay-transparency rules, and employers who choose to publish pay, are over-represented.
Employer names are not merged, so an employer's true share can be understated.
Some periods are inferred from the size of the amount. The share of stated against inferred figures is printed on every pay page so that readers can judge it.
Classification corrections. Postings are assigned a SOC 2018 code by the site's title taxonomy. Three advanced-practice nursing roles that the taxonomy groups with Registered Nurses (29-1141) are moved at recording time, because their pay is not comparable: titles containing "CRNA" or "anesthetist" go to Nurse Anesthetists (29-1151), titles containing "nurse practitioner", "NP", "APRN", "ARNP", "FNP" or "PMHNP" go to Nurse Practitioners (29-1171), and titles containing "midwife" or "CNM" go to Nurse Midwives (29-1161). No other code is changed. Occupation codes are otherwise as the taxonomy assigns them, so a page can include specialised roles within its group.
The parser reads one figure per posting. A posting with several pay levels contributes the one with the highest score, which may not be the one a reader would pick.
Re-listed postings are counted again, as defined above.

Comparison sources

Where the site holds the figure, an occupation page shows the median annual wage from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS), May 2023, as a national comparison. OEWS measures wages paid to people in post, so it is a different measure and will differ. Job-openings volumes can be compared with the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), which counts openings across the economy rather than postings on one site.

Licence, citation and files

The data is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Attribution required; commercial reuse permitted. To cite this method:

YourJobs (2026). Data methodology v1.1. https://yourjobs.com/data-methodology

To cite a figure, use the cite-as line at the foot of the page it comes from. CSV files, one header row, UTF-8:

pay-by-occupation-state-latest.csv: Median advertised hourly rate and counts for every occupation and state in the 30-day window.
top-employers-latest.csv: Employers with the most postings in the 30-day window.
Monthly tables follow the pattern pay-by-occupation-state-YYYY-MM.csv and top-employers-YYYY-MM.csv under https://yourjobs.com/data/.

Browse the figures: pay by occupation, top employers, hiring facts.

Versioning

This is version 1.1, published 20 October 2026. When a parser rule, a threshold or a definition changes, the version number and the last-updated date on this page change with it, and the change is described here.

1.1, 20 October 2026. Parser rules revised after a 310-posting precision check: exclusion words now count only when they modify the figure itself (a pay word in between makes them a heading); ranges tolerate "USD" and a period tag between the bounds; figures quoted per visit, mile, load, unit or session, add-ons written with a plus sign, training-period pay, detention and breakdown pay, and figures labelled with another state's name in a multi-state pay table are all skipped; tighter floors for figures with no period word. Classification corrections for three advanced-practice nursing roles. Incentives section added.
1.0, 20 October 2026. First publication.

Frequently asked

What data are the pay pages based on?

Job postings on yourjobs.com, which arrive from the ClickCast feed and refresh hourly. For each posting we record the date we first saw it, the employer, place and occupation code, and any pay stated in the title or description. Pay pages cover the last 30 days of postings, plus monthly history.

What does "median advertised hourly rate" mean?

It is the middle value of the hourly rates that employers stated in postings. Each posting with pay contributes one value: the midpoint of its stated range, converted to an hourly equivalent using 2,080 hours a year, 40 hours a week and 8 hours a day. Half of the postings advertised more, half less. It is published only when at least 30 postings stated pay.

Is this what people in the job actually earn?

No. It is what employers advertised in new postings. Earned pay includes overtime, tips, bonuses and years of seniority, and it covers people already in post. For earned pay use the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics OEWS survey, which pay pages link to where we hold the figure. Advertised pay and earned pay are different measures, so we do not use the words "average salary".

What happens to postings with no pay, or with an unclear period?

A posting with no readable pay is counted as a posting but contributes no rate. An amount with no period word is used only if its size makes the period unambiguous (for example 85,000 is read as a yearly figure and 28 as an hourly figure); otherwise it is discarded. Each pay page states what share of its pay figures came with a stated period.

How often is the data updated?

The pages are computed daily. The window is the last 30 days up to the day the page was built, and every data page prints its build date and the dates its sample covers. Monthly tables are calendar months of the date a posting was first seen.

Can I cite or reuse the data?

Yes. The data is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0, including for commercial use, with attribution. Cite as: "YourJobs (2026). Data methodology v1.1. https://yourjobs.com/data-methodology" for the method, or use the cite-as line at the foot of each data page for a specific figure. CSV files are listed on this page.

Notes

Hourly equivalents assume 2,080 hours a year (40 x 52); daily 8 hours; weekly 40 hours. Advertised pay is what employers posted, not what workers earn.

Cite as: YourJobs (2026). Data methodology v1.1. https://yourjobs.com/data-methodology