Everything Is Fine

OPEN JOB ADS ↗

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Ads we can see—not every U.S. job

COMPANIES HIRING ⌘

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Unique company names on job boards

ENTRY-LEVEL ADS ↗

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Still just ads—not confirmed hires

LAYOFF SWINGS ◷

N/A

Needs about 8 weeks of layoff reports

00A / WEEKLY

Hiring trends (weekly)

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Loading weekly hiring scores…

A weekly score of how busy game job boards look. This is not the same as our U.S. day-by-day count.

00B / DAILY

Our daily U.S. job-ad count

Collecting

Still collecting days. Charts unlock after 14 days.

We save a count once per day. The day is when we checked, not when the studio posted. If an ad disappears, that is not a layoff.

01 / JOB TYPES

Hiring by job type

Right now

Waiting for data…

How many open ads fall in each job type. This is not a headcount of workers.

02 / EXPERIENCE

Who's getting hired?

Waiting for data…

Experience level comes from the job ad or from how the source labels it.

03 / TOP STUDIOS

Most active hiring studios

Waiting for data…

04 / WHAT'S LIVE

What can we know?

Job ads show that a company is trying to hire. They are not proof someone was hired. An ad that vanishes is not a layoff.

LIVE

Games job ads*From boards we follow

LIVE

Animation & VFX job boards*Small starter list—not every studio

LIVE

Layoff filings for games, animation & VFX*Some states only

LIVE

Government industry totals*Shown for context only

LIVE

College & trade-school awards*Creative CIP programs · not placement rates

05 / GOVERNMENT

Official government counts

Not studio counts

Government totals not published yet.

Big government totals for related industries. We show them for context—we do not add them to our job-ad numbers.

JOB ADS

Open positions

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Waiting for data…

MAP

Where roles are named

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Each pin is the city named on a job ad—not a proven office address. Zoom out and nearby pins group together. Ads with no clear city stay off the map.

STUDIOS

Companies hiring right now

From open job ads

Companies with open ads we can see—not a full list of every studio.

Waiting for data…

LAYOFFS

Layoff filings for games, animation & VFX

CA · NY · TX · WA

We only show games, animation, and VFX companies. We only cover California, New York, Texas, and Washington. A blank box means we do not have enough weeks yet—not that layoffs are zero.

AVERAGE

N/A

Last 12 weeks

HOW MUCH IT JUMPS

N/A

Week-to-week swing

MIDDLE SWING CHECK

N/A

Another way to measure jumps

MATCHING COMPANIES

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Creative companies we could match

These numbers stay blank until we have at least 8 weeks of creative-industry layoff reports.

Loading layoff chart…

RECENT

Latest filings

No matching layoff filings yet.

CONTEXT ONLY

Government jobs nearby

Government totals not loaded.

State layoff filings and government employment counts measure different things. Shown together only for context.

SCHOOL AWARDS

Graduate pipeline

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School awards for games, animation, VFX, and related creative programs. Shown next to entry-level job ads for context only—this is not a placement rate, and an award is not a person looking for work.

CREATIVE AWARDS

N/A

IPEDS vintage year

CURATED SCHOOLS

N/A

Trade schools & art colleges we highlight

COMMUNITY COLLEGES

N/A

Awards at public 2-year & tagged CCs

ENTRY-LEVEL ADS

N/A

Junior / intern ads we can see now

Awards and job ads measure different things. We never invent a placement percentage.

BY PROGRAM

Awards by field of study

Loading awards…

CIP program codes for creative media. Only programs on our allowlist.

BY LEVEL

Awards by credential

Loading awards…

Certificate, associate, bachelor’s, and graduate awards from IPEDS.

CONTEXT ONLY

Supply next to demand

Not a placement rate

Waiting for awards and job ads…

Left: school awards in the IPEDS year. Right: open junior/intern job ads today. Different years, different meanings—shown together only for context.

SCHOOLS

Where awards were conferred

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Loading schools…

SIMPLE PATHS

Trend guesses

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Simple paths that continue recent hiring scores. These are not predictions of who will get hired or laid off.

AVERAGE HIRING SCORE

N/A

Last 8 weeks

HOW MUCH IT JUMPS

N/A

Week-to-week swing

HOW WRONG A GUESS WAS

N/A

Simple guess, last 4 weeks

HOW WRONG AS A %

N/A

Percent error when we can compute it

Loading trend guesses…

Solid line = real weekly score. Dashed lines = “stay the same” and “keep the same weekly change.” We check the simple guess on the last 4 weeks.

ALSO

Layoff trend guesses

Loading layoff trend guesses…

IN PLAIN WORDS

Where the numbers come from.

Everything Is Fine shows real counts we can check. If something is missing, we leave it blank instead of guessing.

Job ads come from game job boards we follow, plus a small starter list of animation and VFX company career pages.
Layoff filings are official notices some companies must file with a state. We only keep games, animation, and VFX companies in four states.
Blank boxes mean we do not have enough data yet—or that source is not connected. Blank is not zero.
Job ads are not hires. An ad that disappears is not a layoff.
School awards are degrees and certificates in creative programs. They are not placement rates, and we do not divide them by job ads.

FOR RESEARCHERS

Sources and methods

We keep job ads we collect, government statistics, and simple trend guesses separate. A blank chart is better than a made-up number.

Gaming Industry Job TrackerLive feed · Weekly scores · Daily U.S. history · Attribution required

Documentation ↗

State WARN open data (CA, NY, TX, WA)Creative companies only on this site · Full state feeds kept in research history

Coverage JSON ↗

Animation / VFX career boardsPublic Greenhouse/Lever boards · Starter coverage · Not a full studio census

Industry coverage ↗

BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and WagesGovernment baseline · Industry codes 5112 / 5121 / 5415 · Never added into job-ad totals

Documentation ↗

U.S. Census Business Dynamics StatisticsGovernment baseline · Establishments and job flows by industry

Documentation ↗

Trend guessesAverages and simple “continue the line” paths · Not hire or layoff forecasts

trajectories.json ↗

NCES IPEDS completionsCreative CIP awards · Curated trade/art schools + any U.S. school awarding those programs · Not placement rates

ipeds_awards.json ↗

Data files

GET /data/jobs.json
GET /data/series/jobs_daily.json
GET /data/series/hiring_index.json
GET /data/series/concentration.json
GET /data/series/trajectories.json
GET /data/series/warn_weekly.json
GET /data/series/bls_qcew.json
GET /data/series/ipeds_awards.json
families: observed.* | upstream.index | baseline.* | model.trajectory | pipeline.awards
trend_ready / stats.ready gate blank UI

Job files update only after a full successful download. Failed runs keep the last good file. Daily U.S. history can be restored from cloud storage before each update. Weekly game-board scores are labeled separately from our U.S. day counts. Trend paths are simple baselines, not predictions of jobs or layoffs.

Everything is fine. Here are the numbers.

Hiring trends (weekly)

Our daily U.S. job-ad count

Hiring by job type

Who's getting hired?

Most active hiring studios

What can we know?

Official government counts

Open positions

Where roles are named

Companies hiring right now

Layoff filings for games, animation & VFX

Latest filings

Government jobs nearby

Graduate pipeline

Awards by field of study

Awards by credential

Supply next to demand

Where awards were conferred

Trend guesses

Layoff trend guesses

Where the numbers come from.

Sources and methods

Data files