DayOneJobs Research · 2026
The entry-level job market, told by 146,050 postings.
We analyzed a year of listings to find where employers are hiring, what they pay, and what they actually ask from candidates.
LIVE DATASETANALYZED
NYOperations AssociateNew York · $54K
TXCustomer Success RepAustin · Hybrid
CAJunior Data AnalystLos Angeles · $68K
ILMarketing CoordinatorChicago · 0–2 years
GAHealthcare AssistantAtlanta · Full time
0postings processed
01 / The big picture
Opportunity is broad.
Flexibility is not.
The dataset spans 146,050 listings from employers across 100+ countries. The report focuses on 97,064 United States postings, where job requirements and salary data are most consistent.
02 / What jobs pay
The disclosed-pay ladder
The middle job pays $52,624.
Among 44,513 US listings with usable USD pay, annualized compensation rises sharply after the 75th percentile.
P10$34,243
P25$40,000
MEDIAN$52,624
P75$85,000
P90$142,450
45.9% of US listings included salary data that could be safely annualized. This report does not infer pay for listings without disclosure.
03 / Where the work happens
Remote is visible.
On-site is dominant.
In job listings with a classified arrangement, fewer than one in ten offered hybrid or remote work.
90.6%on-site
On-site 87,446 Hybrid 5,322 Remote 3,754
04 / The experience paradox
53.7%
asked for no more than two years of experience.
Entry-level opportunity exists at scale. More than half of classified US listings fell into the 0–2 year band, while only 3.6% asked for 10 years or more.
0–2 years51,822
2–5 years29,668
5–10 years11,559
10+ years3,471
05 / Degrees are not the only door
High school appeared more often than a bachelor’s degree.
Among listings with a detected education requirement, high school was the largest category. Certificates and associate degrees added another large non-bachelor pathway.
HIGH SCHOOL27,824
B
BACHELOR21,142
✓
CERTIFICATE12,940
A
ASSOCIATE6,436
M
POSTGRADUATE6,207
06 / The skills employers repeat
The most requested skills are human.
Communication outranked every technical skill in the extracted requirements. Customer service, problem solving, teamwork, and time management filled the rest of the top five.
Most requestedCommunication46,973 mentions*
Customer service · 26,190Problem solving · 17,205Teamwork · 17,085Time management · 14,875Attention to detail · 13,415*Leadership · 7,402*Obvious capitalization and label variants were combined for these two callouts.
07 / America’s hiring map
California led by volume.
Texas stayed close.
The top two states accounted for more than 22,000 observed postings. Florida, New York, and Illinois completed the top five.
Circle area represents posting count, not geographic area.
- 01New York1,774
- 02Los Angeles1,246
- 03Houston1,102
- 04Austin933
- 05Chicago875
- 06Phoenix854
08 / The industries opening doors
Healthcare hired at a different scale.
Healthcare listings outnumbered retail by more than 4,800 postings in the US dataset.
13,429Healthcare+
8,614RetailSHOP
4,157Restaurants☕
4,024HospitalityH
2,977Real estate⌂
09 / Sponsorship reality
A narrow but searchable market
Only 200 US listings explicitly signaled sponsorship.
That is roughly 2 in every 1,000 US postings in the export. “Not stated” should not be read as “never sponsors,” so candidates should verify policies with each employer.
Explore visa sponsorship jobs →10 / What job seekers can do with this
Five moves backed by the data.
Search beyond remote-only roles.
On-site and hybrid filters reveal a much larger pool, especially for early-career applicants.
Do not self-reject over experience.
More than half of classified listings asked for no more than two years.
Lead with proof of communication.
Show clear writing, customer interaction, teamwork, or presentations in your bullets.
Use disclosed salary as an anchor.
The middle disclosed salary was $52,624, but role, state, and industry matter greatly.
Search credentials, not only degrees.
High school, certificates, and associate credentials appeared across tens of thousands of listings.
Methodology
How we read 146,050 job postings.
This report uses a DayOneJobs export of postings collected during the prior year. The analysis includes records available at export on July 29, 2026. Valid posting dates in the source are concentrated between November 2025 and July 2026, so the report avoids month-over-month claims for a complete 12-month period.
Scope
Global totals use all 146,050 records. Detailed findings use 97,064 records identified as United States postings.
Salary normalization
USD hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and annual values were annualized using 2,080 hours, 260 days, 52 weeks, or 12 months. Implausible annual values below $15,000 or above $1,000,000 were excluded.
Classifications
Work arrangement, experience, education, skills, and sponsorship are based on structured fields extracted from each listing. Category totals may differ because some listings contain multiple labels or no usable label.
Limitations
This is a large observational dataset, not every job posted. Employer frequency, source coverage, repeated roles, and extraction quality can influence results. Posting counts do not equal hires.
Datasetday_one_jobs_jobs_data.csvExported July 29, 2026 · 146,050 records
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