What is changing?
Lightcast has upgraded its location coding process to Google geocoding.
When will this change take place?
For Canada, this change will take place on June 6, 2025.
What will this change mean for me?
Total posting counts will show changes across postings history compared to prior posting volumes.
Specific estimated national annual changes are as follows for new postings:
Year | Canada |
2018 | 4% |
2019 | 4% |
2020 | 7% |
2021 | 4% |
2022 | 4% |
2023 | 7% |
2024 | 5% |
2025 | 4% |
Active postings will experience the same annual changes.
Why will there be more postings in Canada data?
For postings to be included in Lightcast Canada data, a city location is needed. With the switch to Google geocoding, Lightcast is able to better find and normalize raw city names; thus the volume of data that is included in the Canadian postings data has increased.
The change is twofold:
Across the majority of Canadian provinces, a moderate change will be seen per year due to the improvements above.
In Quebec, the change is more significant, as seen below. This is due to a correction to how cities are coded across that province.
Year | Quebec |
2018 | 14% |
2019 | 15% |
2020 | 19% |
2021 | 13% |
2022 | 12% |
2023 | 26% |
2024 | 33% |
2025 | 28% |
What does this mean for my analysis?
Overall posting counts have shifted, but the trends remain constant. This is primarily a technical change in processing to create a better on-going experience with Lightcast job postings.
Consistent trends: Looking at the change from a ranking/distribution standpoint, we see the same/similar rankings in occupations, skills, titles, and all other data points as we did previously.
Change in overall volume for postings: Customers should expect to see some variations in specific location counts.
Noticeable changes in specific analyses: In more targeted analyses, especially around locations, customers may see more significant shifts. We have seen a proportional change in all other data elements, but customers analyzing location-specific trends may want to rerun their analysis to account for these changes.