Washington, Aug 14 (IANS): Job postings in the US requiring mandatory vaccination against Covid-19 have jumped by 34 per cent this month, according to the latest analysis published by job site Indeed.

"The increase comes as the highly contagious Delta variant has fuelled a surge in virus cases, vaccines have become more broadly available and more businesses mandate vaccination as they bring their workforces back to the office," Xinhua news agency quoted a CNBC report as saying on Friday.

The jump in businesses requiring a vaccine for new hires also coincides with a record number of US job openings in June, said the CNBC report.

Despite big percentage growth, the overall number of job posts mandating applicants to have a vaccine is still relatively small, Ann Elizabeth Konkel, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab who authored the analysis, was quoted as saying.

In the software-development sector, for example, about 438 job postings out of every 1 million required a vaccine in July.

But that represents an increase of more than 10,000 per cent from the 3.5 posts per million that did so in February, according to Indeed.

The trend is similar in many other industries and occupations that hadn't mandated vaccination in great numbers, like accounting, retail and marketing, according to the analysis.

"Broadly, the trend is more job postings are requiring the Covid-19 vaccine," added Konkel.

"I really think we're on the cusp of a potentially booming trend."