NTIA · United States · November 2023
Online job search and applications in the U.S.
Who searches or applies for jobs online, and how does participation differ by employment status?
Internet users aged 15+ · Past six months · Assisted analysis checked 2026-10-09
of U.S. internet users aged 15+ were reported as using the internet to search or apply for a job in the past six months in NTIA’s November 2023 survey.
The denominator includes internet users who were not looking for work. It is not the percentage of jobseekers who used online services, nor the percentage who found a job.
People · U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized internet users aged 15+ · November 2023 · Not all residents or all adults aged 18+
Source: NTIA / U.S. Census Bureau Analyze Table, Nov 2023 / jobSearchUser / adultInternetUser, usProp; JOBSCH, questionnaire page 7. Social Usage converts the source proportion to a percentage.
Online job search is not confined to unemployed internet users
Participation was 73.9% among internet users classified as unemployed, 22.8% among those employed and 11.2% among those not in the labor force.
Internet users aged 15+ within each group · United States · November 2023 · Past six months
Source: NTIA aggregate CSV, row 762, workEmployed / workUnemployed / workNILF Prop columns. Exact values and source standard errors.
The unemployed estimate exceeds the employed estimate by 51.1 percentage points, a descriptive subtraction before rounding. These bars describe participation within each group, not each group’s share of everyone who searched online.
Employment status is a survey classification; the activity spans the previous six months. Someone classified as employed could have searched earlier in that period. The data do not identify a transition into employment, whether a search succeeded, or why a person searched. “Not in the labor force” is a separate category and cannot be relabelled unemployed.
The source SE for the unemployed estimate is 1.8685 percentage points, versus 0.3398 for the employed estimate. We retain those sampling errors without calculating a significance test or a confidence interval for the gap.
Younger internet users had higher participation estimates
The estimate was 34.3% for ages 15–24, 26.5% for ages 25–44, 15.3% for ages 45–64 and 4.5% for ages 65+.
Internet users within each age band · United States · November 2023 · Past six months
Source: NTIA aggregate CSV, row 762, age1524 / age2544 / age4564 / age65p Prop columns. Source errors and exact percentages.
The ages 15–24 and 65+ estimates differ by 29.8 percentage points. This comparison includes people with different employment situations; it does not isolate an age effect. The published marginal groups do not support an age-by-employment estimate.
Ages 15–24 include both teenagers and adults. They are not a college-student or recent-graduate sample. Similarly, the 65+ group is not a retirement classification. These labels preserve the survey’s actual age bands.
The question includes both searching and applying
“In the past six months, [have you/has NAME] used the Internet to search or apply for a job? (If needed) [Do you/Does NAME] use the Internet to search or apply for a job?”
Source: JOBSCH / PEJOBSCH, November 2023 questionnaire, PDF page 149 / Attachment 8, page 7. USEINT, PDF page 148, establishes random selection of an internet user aged 15+ and the activity context. Household proxy answers are permitted.
A Yes answer can mean search, application or both; this table cannot separate them or count applications. JOBSCH applies to selected internet users across employment groups. The nearby employed-only branch is for TELEWK, a different question.
No platform or channel is named. The result is not a LinkedIn audience, social-network recruitment rate or comparison of job boards. It also supplies no interview, offer, placement, earnings or unemployment-rate estimate. Adding it to online classes and job training would double-count any people who did both activities.
All estimates and source uncertainty
Read the national, employment and age figures
| Group | Share (%) | Source SE (pp) | Source column |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 20.1234 | 0.2615 | usProp |
| 15–24 | 34.2979 | 0.9460 | age1524Prop |
| 25–44 | 26.5300 | 0.4650 | age2544Prop |
| 45–64 | 15.2899 | 0.3893 | age4564Prop |
| 65+ | 4.5449 | 0.2535 | age65pProp |
| Employed | 22.8285 | 0.3398 | workEmployedProp |
| Unemployed | 73.9298 | 1.8685 | workUnemployedProp |
| Not in the labor force | 11.1756 | 0.3868 | workNILFProp |
Source proportions and proportion SEs have six decimal places. Multiplication by 100 yields the four-decimal percentages and percentage-point SEs shown here. An SE is not a confidence interval. Cell sample sizes, confidence intervals and suppression information are not supplied for these selected cells.
The national result is separately weighted, not the average of the group percentages. Each group has its own internet-user denominator. Age and employment are separate classifications; neither may be summed with the national estimate. Blank under-15 cells remain missing, and missing employment classifications are not assigned to another group.
Source: NTIA Analyze Table, Nov 2023 / jobSearchUser / adultInternetUser; named Prop columns and paired PropSE columns.
Methods and reproducibility
Who was surveyed and how the estimates were produced
Fieldwork ran 12–18 November 2023. The Census Current Population Survey supplement covers the civilian noninstitutionalized population in the 50 states and District of Columbia. One internet user aged 15+ per household is randomly selected for this activity sequence; households with only younger internet users skip it. A household member may answer for the selected person.
NTIA codes PEJOBSCH = 1 as jobSearchUser for that respondent, within adultInternetUser. The internal name does not imply an age minimum of 18. The random-respondent weight is PWPRMWGT; the source SEs use 160 respondent replicate weights and successive difference replication.
PRTAGE defines age bands. PEMLR codes 1–2 are grouped as Employed, 3–4 Unemployed and 5–7 Not in the Labor Force; −1 is missing. We preserve NTIA’s internet-user eligibility rather than substituting the population of a general labor-force statistic. Employment status is not reconstructed at the time of a search.
Social Usage selects published aggregates and processes no individual responses. Census editing and hot-deck imputation, reporting error, nonresponse and coverage error can affect these findings beyond sampling uncertainty. The comparisons are not adjusted for age or other characteristics.
Sources: technical documentation, PDF pages 7, 142, 148 and 149; official November 2023 code, lines 16/26, 33/36, 39/40 and 96; aggregate tabulator, lines 330–368.
Reproduce the conversions and descriptive differences
Locate Nov 2023 / jobSearchUser / adultInternetUser in the original CSV, row 762 including the header in the retained version. The wave, variable and universe identify the row if positions change.
National proportion: 0.201234 × 100 = 20.1234%. Source SE: 0.002615 × 100 = 0.2615 percentage points.
- Ages 15–24 minus 65+: 34.2979 − 4.5449 = 29.7530 percentage points.
- Unemployed minus employed: 73.9298 − 22.8285 = 51.1013 percentage points.
These Social Usage subtractions use full-precision inputs before rounding. They are not percent change, significance or causal effects. Separate source SEs do not provide the covariance needed for uncertainty around the differences.
Retained CSV SHA-256: c9b744849847775cf9419c8565553830b9fa374f62bbd674d4f22888521fd10a. Analysis: ntia-job-search-2026-10-09-v2. Source records, question, code, cells, formulas and this page are bound to assisted review.
Dates, historical coverage and reuse
- Data period
- November 2023 · Fieldwork 12–18 November
- Source publication
- 2024-06-06 · 2023 Data Explorer update
- Retained statistical retrieval
- 2026-10-01 (UTC)
- Assisted analysis review
- 2026-10-09
November 2023 is the latest jobSearchUser row in this retained table. Earlier rows exist, but their questions, eligibility and weighting need a separate comparison review. This page selects one wave and makes no current-year extrapolation or historical-growth claim.
Selected federal aggregate facts and original attributed charts/tables are used in this ad-supported publication under the retained rights basis. There is no new data download, image export or embed. Job search is outside the digital-behavior explorer’s existing five-activity selection and downloads.
U.S. federal statistical work; 17 U.S.C. § 105; original rights verification 2026-10-01. Source: National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), Internet Use Survey, November 2023; U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Survey. Selection and presentation by SocialUsage; no agency endorsement implied.
Assisted checking is not independent human editorial approval. No agency artwork, logo or individual response is reproduced.