Geography, certainly, is critical. Lower-wage workers rarely move for a job. Still, on average, Ms. Pollak said in an email, “It is harder (in some sense, at least) to get a job as an administrative assistant, receptionist or warehouse worker than it is to get into Harvard, with its relatively generous 5.2 percent acceptance rate” in 2017.
There are severe labor shortages for jobs demanding specialized skills, licensing requirements, or tough working conditions. For the roughly 246,000 truck-driver listings on the site, there were 12 responses for each job, Ms. Pollak said. For the 237,000 skilled nursing jobs, there were just nine responses on average.
Unionized jobs, with higher pay, steady hours and better benefits — such as airport baggage handler positions — are by far the most coveted, she said.
“Pleasant workplace conditions are just like any other benefit, and people gravitate towards it,” said Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at the career site Glassdoor. “And it enables employers to get all the people they want without raising wages.”
Mr. Chamberlain said minimum-wage increases in several states had done a lot to improve pay for some low-wage earners, like baristas, cashiers and bank tellers.
Changing jobs can amplify a wage increase. “There is a gap opening up between job-stayers and job-switchers,” he said, with switchers getting pay gains nearly a percentage point greater over the past 12 months, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s wage tracker. In July 2014, the gap was just 0.6 percentage points.
Overall, Mr. Chamberlain added, “This is the strongest labor market in a generation of workers.”
The quirks of August
The Labor Department’s report provides only a partial and temporary barometer of the economy. The August estimates will be revised twice in the coming months.
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