I got this email from LinkedIn today and was rather surprised to see that 2,188 people in my network changed jobs in 2011. My network is roughly 7.5k strong so this works out at about 30% job hoppers - a very interesting figure.

But before we start thinking about how on earth all these people found new jobs in a recession, we have to remember that this report is generated based on people updating their job titles. Merely updating your profile doesn't necessarily mean you are in a new position. Lots of people tinker with their profiles for various reasons. Not to mention everyone who is a freelancer or business owner, these users certainly change their profiles but don't actually move anywhere.

The purpose of this email from LinkedIn is of course to drive more activity to their network. The idea is that you will a.) want to see who has moved where, b.) compare their profile to yours and look to improve it and c.) think about new opportunities for yourself. It's funny how emails are still the killer app of the Internet, even in this social world that we live in.

And by the way, if you know people looking to move jobs have them check out the LinkedIn Resume Builder which is a very handy tool that automatically generates a neat resume from your LinkedIn profile.

And as if that tool weren't enough, if you want to keep a real time eye on what your network is up to and who's moving jobs when, you can use the Job Change Notifier which scans your connections and tells you when somebody moves on.

How many people shifted gigs in your LinkedIn network last year? Please let me know!