LONDON, 14 October 2025 – Declining survey response rates, chronic underfunding, growing politicization of government agencies, and delayed reporting due to the government shutdown have all combined to undermine market confidence in official government data at precisely the time accurate labor market insights are most critical for assessing the true state of the economy in an increasingly complex world.
GlobalData Plc, the trusted intelligence partner to the world's leading organizations, offers a clear alternative. Powered by real-time, proprietary job postings data indexed daily directly from company and employer websites globally and leveraging a purpose-built AI model, GlobalData helps tracks underlying labor market trends ahead of the official release of U.S. Non-Farm Payroll (NFP) data.
Toby Dayton, Managing Director at GlobalData, comments: “Using LinkUp's unique, high-quality, real-time job postings data and advanced modelling, we are able to deliver accurate signals around labor market strength or weakness and provide investors with data and insights to fundamentally understand one of the most critical drivers of the economy ahead of the official release.”
Over the past two years, forecasts powered by GlobalData's LinkUp data have beaten consensus 65% of the time while achieving 30% lower forecast errors. Crucially, trading signals derived from these forecasts have generated a cumulative 3% to 5% positive one-day return in equities and FX markets on NFP release days, evidence of the dataset's economic value for investors.
Superior data and forecasting
LinkUp's dataset, sourced directly from employer websites, eliminates sponsored job ads, duplicates, and expired postings and other job board pollution that plagues data sourced from third-party providers. Covering over 10 million daily active jobs across 195 countries and backed by a historical point-in-time archive dating to 2007, LinkUp data provides unparalleled breadth and depth to model robust forecasts. Proprietary indicators such as active jobs, posted jobs, and closed jobs correlate well with both NFP and JOLTS dataset, both at aggregate level and at sector-level, making them a ideal input into forecasting NFP and JOLTS.
Advanced modelling
GlobalData's forecasts are powered by a multi-stage modelling approach:
We initially train a constrained XG-Boost model for 10-year period, between 2013 to 2023, excluding 2-year COVID-19 period to remove pandemic driven abnormalities.
Key model input variables are LinkUp's closed jobs and posted jobs, initial claims and policy uncertainty (to incorporate tariff induced labor demand recalibration)
We then incorporate the above forecast in a secondary linear regression model along with ICE immigration data, trained from 2019, excluding covid period.
The second model forecast begin in Jan-2024 and the model is retrained each month to include latest date to build forecast for each subsequent months.
Investor advantage
For capital market participants, the benefits are clear:
Get an early lead into labor market trends and position accordingly. Our backtest shows that going long when GlobalData NFP forecasts are 5% above consensus and short if they are below 5%, across 6 FX pairs, generates 5% aggregate 1-day return across 18 data releases. In equity, across marketcaps, the aggregate 1-day return is 3%.
Dayton concludes: “Labor markets often move in cycles and tend to follow discernible patterns. By monitoring actual job postings in real time as opposed to job ads sourced from third parties, GlobalData can detect these turning points well before traditional data signal them.
“Investors who leverage GlobalData's AI-powered insights gain clarity on sectoral labor dynamics, early visibility into payroll strength or weakness, and the confidence to act ahead of consensus. In an environment where timing is everything, this foresight can transform uncertainty into opportunity.”
Notes
Quotes are provided by Toby Dayton, Managing Director at GlobalData
This press release was written using data and information sourced from proprietary databases, primary and secondary research, and in-house analysis conducted by GlobalData's team of industry experts
About GlobalData
GlobalData Plc (AIM:DATA) operates an intelligence platform that empowers leaders to act decisively in a world of complexity and change. By uniting proprietary data, human expertise, and purpose-built AI into a single, connected platform, we help organisations see what is coming, move faster, and lead with confidence. Our solutions are used by over 5,000 organizations across the world's largest industries, providing tailored intelligence that supports strategic planning, innovation, risk management, and sustainable growth.