Lightcast
Lightcast provides labor-market data and software for enterprise, education, and government teams.
What Lightcast is
Lightcast provides labor-market data and software for enterprise, education, and government teams. Its database combines more than 2.5 billion job postings and career profiles with government labor-market information. The software portfolio includes Analyst, Career Coach, Developer, GoRecruit, Recruit, SmartReq, Talent Analyst, Talent Transform, and Widget Builder, among other products. Teams can use APIs to customize how data appears in a website or application, or receive data through services including Amazon S3, Databricks, Google BigQuery, Google Cloud Storage, Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, SFTP, and Snowflake. Its API taxonomies cover more than 34,000 standardized skills, 75,000 standardized titles, and 1,800 specialized occupations. Lightcast also offers consulting, software subscriptions, and custom data delivery. Rhetorik data includes more than 800 million enriched professional profiles and 280 million company records; profiles and data are described as GDPR-, CCPA-, and DPA-compliant. Analyst supports SSO through OIDC and SAML. Pricing is on request; platforms are web and API.
Good
- Labor-market sources include postings, profiles, and government information.
- APIs support custom display in websites and applications.
- Data delivery includes cloud storage and warehouse options.
- Analyst supports OIDC and SAML single sign-on.
- Support includes economists, data scientists, and account managers.
Watch out
- Pricing is available on request.
- Some offerings are consulting or custom data delivery, not subscriptions.
Who it suits
Lightcast suits organizations that need labor-market data for workforce planning, attrition analytics, diversity analytics, or scenario modeling. Its APIs and data delivery options also fit teams integrating data into their own systems.
Verdict
Lightcast combines labor-market datasets with software, APIs, and multiple delivery options. Teams should request pricing and identify which offering fits their intended use.
Plans and prices
From Lightcast's own pricing page, checked 15 Oct 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Public-Good Skills API | Free | nonprofits/public-good use · up to 50 skill-extraction requests per month · limited scope · no production-scale usage · Approval required |
| Consulting | Priced on request | one-time consulting projects · economist-led analysis · Contact Lightcast |
| Data Delivery | Priced on request | data piped into internal systems · custom displays · Contact Lightcast |
| Software | Priced on request | subscription software · customizable access · Contact Lightcast |
The facts
Each one read from Lightcast's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- Alumni Pathways
- Alumni Pathways analyzes post-graduation career paths and outcomes.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Analyst
- Analyst supports supply-and-demand analysis, career-pathway alignment and education program strategy.checked 15 Oct 2026
- API authentication
- Many APIs use OAuth 2.0 client-credentials authentication with bearer tokens that expire after 3,600 seconds.checked 15 Oct 2026
- API documentation
- The developer documentation includes setup, API keys, endpoint references, datasets, use cases, Postman examples and changelogs.checked 15 Oct 2026
- API limits
- Documented limits include 300 Core LMI requests per five minutes, five Skills or Titles requests per second, and 10 requests per second for Companies, JPA and Profiles APIs.checked 15 Oct 2026
- API taxonomies
- Lightcast advertises 34,000-plus standardized skills, 75,000-plus standardized titles, and 1,800-plus specialized occupations in its taxonomies.checked 30 Sep 2026
- API use
- Lightcast APIs let customers customize when, where, and how Lightcast data appears on a website or application.checked 30 Sep 2026
- Career Coach
- Career Coach offers interest and skills exploration, recommended education options and local job postings for learners.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Commercial licensing
- For-profit or production API use requires a commercial license; Lightcast may offer time-bound, prorated evaluation access.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Corporate history
- Lightcast says Emsi and Burning Glass combined under the Lightcast name in 2022; KKR purchased Emsi and merged it with Burning Glass in 2021.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Data access
- Data can be accessed by API or through shares delivered via Amazon S3, Databricks, BigQuery, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob Storage, SFTP, Snowflake and marketplace listings.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Data coverage
- Lightcast says its database contains more than 2.5 billion job postings and career profiles and combines those sources with government labor-market information.checked 30 Sep 2026
- Data delivery
- Lightcast supports API access and data shares through Amazon S3, Databricks, Google BigQuery, Google Cloud Storage, Microsoft Azure Blob Storage, SFTP, Snowflake, Snowflake Marketplace, and Databricks Marketplace.checked 30 Sep 2026
- Data scale
- LinkedIn describes a database exceeding 3 billion job postings, 1.2 billion career profiles and 100-plus government sources.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Global coverage
- Its data covers 165 countries and markets representing 99% of world GDP.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Integrations
- Lightcast is a Workday Certified Integration and Innovation Partner that sends market-based skills, normalized titles and occupations into Workday job profiles.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: data granularity
- G2 reviewers report flawed SOC matching, insufficiently specific talent pools, missing zip-code search and a desire for more local data and customization.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Limit: wage data freshness
- A G2 reviewer says reliance on BLS data can make wage and compensation reports outdated, while advertised-wage reports are more current.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Marketplace integration
- Lightcast joined the Snowflake Marketplace and became a Workday Certified Partner in 2024.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Notable outage
- A February 20, 2026 Workday incident temporarily affected Talent Transform's Company Datastore, Workday Integration and SAP Integration before resolution.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Occupation taxonomy
- The Lightcast Occupation Taxonomy has more than 1,800 specialized occupations in four hierarchical levels.checked 15 Oct 2026
The company
- Company profile
- LinkedIn lists Lightcast as privately held, founded in 2000, headquartered in Moscow, Idaho, with 501–1,000 employees.checked 15 Oct 2026
- Funding and owner
- Crunchbase lists one private-equity funding round, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts as investor and six acquisitions.checked 15 Oct 2026
Where it runs
- Developer platform
- Developer provides location, employment, demographic, wage, industry, occupation, profile and job-posting analysis for economic and workforce professionals.checked 15 Oct 2026
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