More job cuts in construction in June, slowed growth in health care, and consistent revisions in 2008 combine for an off-putting BLS report
By Emily on July 7th, 2008After skimming through the employment situation report released by the BLS last Thursday morning, I’m starting to think that I could write these reports myself. Save for the minor issue of having credible statistics that are validated by real surveys, anyone who even haphazardly keeps up with the reports could have been able to predict recent employment developments. Since the start of 2008, the country’s payroll activity has been standard in most industries, and unfortunately for us, consistently bad. It looks as though we continued to lose jobs during the month of June…to the tune of 62,000 positions.
The unemployment rate in the U.S. held steady last month, following a dramatic spike to 5.5 percent in May. Compared with June 2007, the nation’s unemployment rate is up by almost an entire percentage point. The civilian labor force (at 154.4 million), the labor force participation rate (at 66.1 percent), and employment-population ratio (at 62.4 percent) all experienced minimal movement in June. In the first half of the year, close to 440,000 jobs have been lost across all U.S. employment sectors.
Those predictable shifts I was talking about occurred mostly in the individual industries. Manufacturing jobs decreased by 33,000 last month in areas such as fabricated metal products and printing and related support activities. Professional and business services dropped over 50,000 positions in June, with administrative and support services and employment services responsible for the bulk of this larger loss. The construction industry cut 43,000 jobs as well, bringing its grand total of lost positions since the sector’s peak in 2006 to 528,000.
Growth in health care slowed considerably; probably one of the only aspects of June’s employment situation report that was out of the ordinary. The average monthly gain in health care jobs over the past year has been around 30,000, whereas this month the industry added only 15,000. Far better than a loss though. Food services and drinking places also added 16,000 positions, while government-related employment trended upward by close to 30,000 jobs.
It’s also about time that we take a look at the damage that revisions have done to the initial numbers from this year’s BLS reports. If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you’ll see that two months after their release, the employment numbers from every report this year have been revised downward, and in most cases dramatically. For example, January’s employment report originally reflected a loss of 17,000 jobs—which skyrocketed to a loss of 76,000 positions by the time March’s report was released. I’ve written about the inevitability of revisions in the past, and the revisions that the BLS has been making as of late certainly aren’t improving the already dismal employment situation in our country.
To round out the findings from last month, the average hourly earnings for U.S. workers continued to rise by 0.3 percent, meaning that we collectively make an additional six cents per hour now. Reason enough to celebrate? Maybe not…but it’s about all we had going for us in the month of June.
May brings another round of job losses to the U.S. and a heightened unemployment rate
By Emily on June 9th, 2008Well, fellow employment situation report enthusiasts, it seems as though 2008 is just not shaping up to be our year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its report for May this past Friday, and I’m sorry to say that the streak lives on: five months in a row that our country has posted a net loss in jobs. This past month the U.S. dropped 49,000 positions overall, and the cut in jobs was compounded by a 0.5 percent jump in the unemployment rate—which now stands at 5.5 percent.
Since the start of 2008, the nation’s employment industries have combined for a total loss of 324,000 jobs. In May specifically, the number of newly unemployed persons rose by 760,000 to reach 3.2 million. Job drop-offs in most sectors were typical, save for a larger loss (-39,000) in professional and business services than usual. The construction industry cut 34,000 positions over the past month, bringing the sector’s total loss in jobs since September of 2006 to 475,000. Manufacturing and retail trade employment both trended downward as well, losing 26,000 and 27,000 positions, respectively.
The health care industry miraculously added 34,000 jobs in May, with sizeable gains yet again coming in ambulatory health care services and hospitals. This sector’s growth helped to soften the collective blow of the job losses detailed above. Food services and drinking places also managed to add more than 11,000 positions in May, but this industry’s job creation has slowed substantially since November of 2007.
The average workweek for U.S. employees stagnated at 33.7 hours in May, while the average hourly earnings for workers rose by five cents. Average weekly earnings in this country now stand at $604.58.
Promising gains in the service industries aren’t resilient enough to lift the country out of its job slump in April
By Emily on May 5th, 2008Another Friday has come and gone with news of a decline in U.S. jobs. For the fourth month in a row, the employment situation report released by the BLS has reflected industry losses and gains that amount to an overall drop in the nation’s payroll totals. To be fair, a loss of 20,000 positions in April seems minimal when compared with the 200,000+ jobs that were lost over the first three months of the year. But this also isn’t the kind of streak that economists, employment specialists, or the country’s workers want to see persist as we make our way further into 2008.
The unemployment rate (at 5.0 percent), the employment-population ratio (at 62.7 percent), and the labor force participation rate (at 66.0 percent) all showed little to no movement over the month. Since April of last year, the nation’s overall unemployment rate has jumped from 4.5 to 5.0 percent.
When viewed alongside the numbers from January, February, and March; the industry losses and gains from last month seem eerily familiar. The only difference (and saving grace) from April appears to be a spike in professional and technical services (with a 10,000-job jump in computer systems design and a 9,000-job increase in accounting and bookkeeping services), as well as an ambitious addition of 37,000 positions in the health care industry. The food services sector also helped the cause with a healthy contribution of 18,000 jobs.
The most significant cuts from last month occurred in retail trade, manufacturing, and, where else, but construction. Job losses in retail trade approached 30,000 in April, while manufacturing experienced an even larger drop of close to 50,000 positions. The construction industry trumped all though, with a loss of 61,000 jobs over the past month. The construction sectors have suffered through steep declines within the past year and a half, resulting in more than 400,000 lost positions.
As you can see, respectable gains in the service industries last month were overpowered by unrelenting decreases in a handful of goods-related industries. If the health care and business services sectors continue on with the aggressive growth that they exhibited in April, the American public may once again experience the relief of a BLS report that doesn’t include a negative number in its opening paragraph.
To finish out the report, the BLS found that the average workweek for employees in the U.S. had dropped off by .1 hour, while the average hourly pay for these workers had increased by one cent in April.
Forgive me, but I come bearing more bad news about the U.S. job market
By Emily on April 4th, 2008So it looks as though things just got worse. Following a loss of 63,000 positions in February, the U.S. sliced another 80,000 positions off its total number of jobs in March. Oh, and the payroll numbers from January and February (which, as you can tell from above, were pretty pathetic to begin with), have both been revised to reflect bigger losses. In effect, the country has dropped over 230,000 jobs since the start of 2008.
The largest losses came in the manufacturing, construction, and professional and business services sectors. The industries lost 48,000, 51,000, and 35,000 positions, respectively. Specialty trade contractors, motor vehicles and parts, and employment services were the sectors that underwent the most dramatic declines within these industries.
The only sectors landing in the plus-side column in March worth mentioning are health care and food services. Both industries added 23,000 jobs over the course of the month. I know I mentioned this in my last post, but the average earnings for U.S. workers increased by another five cents in March, placing the nation’s average weekly salary at $603.67.
I guess for now, fewer people are making more money. I’d take the time to dissect March’s numbers a bit further, but I doubt that it would yield any better news. Until next month, I’ll be waiting for the day when I can post an overview of the BLS employment situation report that’s a little more upbeat. I swear there were Fridays when that used to happen…
February brings another loss in jobs, let’s hold out hope that it won’t get any worse.
By Emily on March 7th, 2008Revision fever hits again! If I did have an obsession with payroll numbers being revised, our country’s Bureau of Labor Statistics would certainly be fueling my obsession on a consistent basis.
February’s employment situation report, released this morning, reveals that the payroll totals from December and January have both been adjusted downward. These revisions don’t exactly complement the headline of the report, which states that the U.S. lost 63,000 jobs in the month of February alone. I don’t have enough energy at the moment to search for additional changes and compare numbers from BLS reports further back in 2007, but the revisions from December and January and the losses from February combine for a total deficit of nearly 110,000 positions.
My apologies for starting off strong, but I figured I would get the bad news out of the way as quickly as possible. You should also know that the manufacturing industry lost 52,000 positions in February. And construction dropped 39,000 jobs, while retail trade lost another 34,000. There, I feel better.
While the tone of last month’s employment situation report definitely wasn’t uplifting, there were a few positive changes worth noting. The health care sector added 36,000 positions, with the biggest gains coming in hospitals and ambulatory health care services. Food services and drinking places trended upward as well, adding another 20,000 jobs in February.
The unemployment rate in the U.S. stayed about the same, at 4.8 percent, but the labor force participation rate fell to 65.9 percent. The average earnings for workers in February increased by five cents to $17.80 an hour. Employees in the country now make an average of $599.86 a week, and it looks as though we’re set to break the $600 mark in March.
I suppose that last month the good was pretty good and the bad was really bad. The equation that seems to best explain our nation’s current employment situation is as follows: (+26,000 positions in service-producing industries) + (-89,000 in goods-producing industries) = one BLS report we’d all like to forget about.
Let’s hope that the payroll numbers from March help us rebound a bit from this dismal report.
The U.S. loses jobs in January, and a year’s worth of revisions for the BLS
By Emily on February 1st, 2008I’m not sure why, but I absolutely love when the release date for the Bureau of Labor Statistics payroll report falls on the first of the month. It just feels efficient. I know that makes me sound like a geek, so maybe you’ll be amused to find out that my good mood was ruined when I actually saw the numbers from today’s report. According to the BLS, the U.S. suffered a loss of 17,000 jobs in January, which if you didn’t already know, is pretty bad.
That’s not to say that a bad number wasn’t expected. The December report released last month reflected a gain of only 18,000 positions (a number that has since been revised to 82,000–but that’s a topic I want to discuss a little later). The economy is clearly in a slump and the employment situation reports were bound to feel the effects of that at some point. The unemployment rate remained relatively unchanged over the month and now stands at 4.9 percent.
All of the industry losses and gains were typical. Construction dropped 27,000 jobs, manufacturing cut 28,000. Health care added 27,000 positions, food services gained nearly 15,000. As a whole, the job market isn’t fluctuating in an unpredictable manner. Some sectors are weaker than others, but mindful job seekers should still be able to find great opportunities and willing employers. I know you must be sick of me writing about the benefits of a career in health care, but I won’t stop doing that until the industry stops generating positions (which, for the sake of the U.S. economy, let’s hope doesn’t happen).
Even though the payroll numbers from January were dismal and in many cases standard, one thing about last month’s BLS report that interested me was Table B, which can be found on page 5 of the copy of the report that I linked to above. This table outlines the revisions made to nonfarm employment numbers over the course of 2007, and if you have read any of my previous posts on BLS reports, you know that I am often concerned about revisions.
According to the figures listed in the table, the BLS revised its initial data for every month of the year, and all months except one underwent a revision that exceeded 10,000 jobs. Many people only hear the initial numbers when they’re released, never bothering to sift through the next report for possible (and inevitable) revisions. Revisions for 2007 were both good and bad, with four months experiencing a positive revision and eight months experiencing a negative one. Overall, the BLS anticipated that the U.S. had created about 200,000 more jobs than it really had, and over the course of 2007, the average number of jobs created each month was 95,000.
Not so new news: Your chosen field can impact your earnings just as much as your level of education
By Emily on January 29th, 2008New research and data tables released by the U.S. Census Bureau today reveal that workers with quality vocational training can earn just as much as their counterparts with college degrees. The tables represent a study entitled What It’s Worth: Field of Training and Economic Status in 2004, and they analyze issues such as: the relationship between a person’s field of training and his or her monthly earnings, the average number of years taken to complete certain degrees, and the occupation of workers based on their educational attainment and area of study. Figures are further broken down in many cases according to education, sex, age, race, and Hispanic origin.
I browsed through most of the tables on this page, and here are a few of the statistics that I found interesting and valuable…
In 2004, workers in this country with no education past the elementary school level made an average of $1,696 a month (or roughly $20,350 a year), while the average worker with a bachelor’s degree earned a monthly salary of $4,497 and those with professional degrees pulled in an average of $8,414 each month. In other words, college pays off. That’s not to say that finishing high school and receiving some postsecondary training won’t put you in a better position. On average, those who graduated from high school made a monthly income of $2,276, or around $27,300 a year. When compared with high school graduates, workers with vocational training earned an additional $4,200 each year, and people who had received an associate’s degree made an extra $9,780 annually.
Of the fields of training examined, engineering was the most profitable industry for workers with a vocational certificate or an associate’s degree in 2004. Computer-related occupations yielded the highest annual revenues for those with a bachelor’s degree. Workers who held a master’s degree in business earned a sizeable amount more ($7,217 a month) than workers who received an equivalent education in another field (the next highest compensated field of training was computers, at an average of $6,254 a month).
As mentioned above, one of the tables outlines the occupations of workers in the country based on the level of education they received and their field of study. U.S. citizens without a high school diploma in 2004 worked mostly in service and production. High school graduates were employed more often in production, service, clerical, and sales jobs. Those with vocational certificates were spread out more evenly among all occupational categories, with service, craft, and production being among the most popular. Citizens who held associate degrees also were distributed more evenly, with clerical positions garnering the most workers. People who held a bachelor’s degree in 2004 overwhelming gravitated toward managerial and professional occupations, while those with advanced degrees were more heavily concentrated in the professional sector.
The press release issued along with the tables points out that workers who held vocational certificates in engineering earned about as much as workers with bachelor degrees in natural science. In addition, workers in the country with computer-related associate degrees made an income comparable to citizens with a bachelor’s in education or social science. So even though a higher level of education often equates to more money, the field that you chose to focus in will greatly impact your income at each educational level as well. Other notes that the press release made are as follows: business was the most popular field of training in 2004; it took students an average of over a year to complete vocational programs, over four years to fulfill their associate degrees, and over five years to finish out their bachelor degrees; and women pulled in a lower average salary than men at every degree level.
If vocational training is an educational alternative that you’re interested in, you might want to consider which fields offer the most stable salaries. Among all the vocational industries in the U.S. in 2004, full-time jobs in aviation, drafting, electronics, metal working, refrigeration and heating, and transportation yielded some of the highest average monthly earnings.
Employment a problem in your town? These U.S. cities may have more to offer…
By Emily on January 11th, 2008I was skimming through some of the recent posts I’ve written for OnlineCareerGuide.com, and I noticed that most of them were based on career-specific news, articles, and statistics. I wanted to shift gears a bit today, so I chose to write about locations instead. Yesterday Forbes.com published its list of the “Best Cities for Jobs in 2008.” Even though I’ve seen lists like this before, I welcome the fact that it isn’t geared toward any particular profession or industry. The rankings assess general employment, providing an overall picture of the U.S. marketplace that is ideal for a post like this, as the information can apply to anyone and everyone.
This list certainly isn’t a definitive answer to the question of where to look for your next job, because (as stated in the article that accompanies it), the rankings don’t account for job composition or job stability. Also, if you have any idea of what field you’d like to work in, that detail should take precedence over any unemployment rate or income statistic. That being said, Forbes’s “Best Cities” list is a great way to rejuvenate your options when searching for a new place to work and live, and it can open your eyes to areas that you wouldn’t normally consider.
The 100 largest metropolitan areas in the country were evaluated for this study, and each region was ranked according to its median household income, unemployment rate, income growth, cost of living, and job growth. After combining all of these rankings together, the areas with the best overall employment outlooks are as follows:
1. Salt Lake City, UT
2. Wichita, KS
3. Austin, TX
4. Atlanta, GA
5. Forth Worth, TX
6. Indianapolis, IN
7. Houston, TX
8. Omaha, NE
9. Raleigh, NC
10. Seattle, WA
San Antonio and Dallas helped round out the top 20 cities, giving Texas a total of five metro areas with strong positioning in the marketplace (and making it a serious contender for those who can stand the hot weather). The leisure and hospitality, educational and health services, and commercial construction industries are helping the state to fare well in spite of a weakening national economy. Other cities that placed within the top 20 include Birmingham, Albuquerque, Nashville, Little Rock, Denver, Wilmington (DE), Oklahoma City, and Honolulu (which sounds a little more like my kind of climate).
Of the best cities that Forbes.com mentions; Atlanta owes its success to its transportation, distribution, and financial services sectors; the saving grace of Indianapolis is its agriculture; Omaha has remained stable because of financial services and agriculture as well; while Seattle has stayed viable because of its aerospace and global trade professions. You heard it here first: Seattle and the aerospace industry are about to take off. No pun intended. Ok fine, it was intended.
New year, new jobs? Not really…
By Emily on January 4th, 2008Let’s just say that the newest payroll numbers from December weren’t a great way for the country to ring in the New Year. The U.S. gained 18,000 jobs overall last month, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics likes to phrase as “essentially” or “relatively unchanged.” I like to phrase this minuscule jump in numbers as BAD. But I don’t want to scare anyone away with my negative antics, so I’ll stick to reporting the facts and leave the drawing of worrisome conclusions to you.
I know that my post about November’s BLS report talked a lot about revisions, specifically how September’s employment numbers plummeted in the months following their initial release. I am happy to report that the revisions listed in the December press release were moderate. The number of jobs gained in October slipped a bit from 170,000 positions to 159,000, while November’s projected gains rose from 94,000 jobs to 115,000. So I suppose the revisions balance each other out. Based on the growth in October and November (which wasn’t stellar to begin with), you can see why an increase of 18,000 jobs across the entire nation isn’t exactly good news.
What’s more is that the unemployment rate in the U.S. has jumped from 4.7 to 5.0 percent in the span of just one month. In 2007, payroll employment increased by 1.3 million positions overall. In 2006, the country experienced a gain of 2.3 million jobs. Even though this past year’s economic downfall has been gradual, its effects are definitely being felt.
Some industries did make progress last month. Professional and technical services added 33,000 positions in December, which contributed to a total gain of 322,000 jobs over the year. Within this industry, employment in management and technical consulting services increased by 12,000 and administrative and support services (to buildings and dwellings) contributed another 19,000 jobs. The health care sector and food services, typically bright spots in the employment situation report, added 28,000 and 27,000 positions, respectively. In 2007, the health care industry gained 381,000 jobs, while employment in food services has risen by 304,000 positions.
The construction sector took a big hit in December with a loss of 49,000 jobs. Credit intermediation lost another 7,000 positions last month, and the manufacturing sector lost 31,000. Retail trade dropped 24,000 jobs as well. The average workweek held steady yet again at 33.8 hours, and the average hourly earnings of all U.S. workers increased by seven cents. The median weekly income for the country’s employees now stands at $598.60.
The employment situation report for the month of January 2008 will be released on February 1, so if the payroll numbers continue to trend downward, at least we get to deal with the bad news on the first day of the month. (And then forget about it…for a little while…maybe…let’s hope.) As usual, if you are in the market for a new career, I only have good, reliable things to say about health care.
Learn more about the nation’s fastest growing occupations…use the rankings for career guidance
By Emily on December 18th, 2007Earlier this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics updated its list of the 30 fastest growing occupations in the United States. The revised version of the rankings estimates growth in the country’s industries between 2006 and 2016, providing an intuitive guide for anyone who’s just beginning or reentering college, searching for a new job, or contemplating a career change.
Technology-based jobs had a strong showing on the list, with network systems and data communications specialists grabbing the top spot. The number of positions in this field is expected to increase by 53.4 percent between 2006 and 2016. Software engineers specializing in computer applications came in at number four, with a 44.6 percent jump in jobs anticipated. Computer systems analysts, database administrators, and computer systems software engineers helped round out the top 30 as well. All of these jobs were categorized as having very high annual salaries (at or above $46,360). These positions are most often filled by professionals with bachelor degrees.
Unsurprisingly, health care occupations dominated the rankings, as well as comparable positions in social rehabilitation and veterinary care. Personal and home care aides placed second on the list (at 50.6 percent projected growth), while home health aides were ranked as the third fastest growing profession. The placement of these two careers so high on the list is a direct result of the aging baby boomer population, a group that will undoubtedly need health care assistance within their homes over the next decade. Short-term, on-the-job training was cited as the most common source of postsecondary instruction for workers involved in both of these occupations.
Other health care positions that made the fastest growing list include medical assistants (#8), physical therapy assistants (#15), pharmacy technicians (#16), dental hygienists (#18), dental assistants (#22), physical therapists (#29), and physician assistants (#30). Social rehabilitation occupations such as substance abuse counselors, social and human service assistants, mental health counselors and social workers, and marriage and family therapists also placed high in the rankings. Veterinarians (#9) and veterinary technicians (#5) appeared within the top ten as well.
If you want to browse the list of promising occupations for yourself, click here. As a warning, the text in the HTML version is ridiculously tiny, so if you can’t burn holes through walls with your eyes, and you didn’t eat a lot of carrots when you were younger (yes, I continue to embrace my mother’s lies), you might prefer reading the text file. I was squinting for a good 15 minutes before I endeavored to find an easier version to read. See how I do all the work for you?
The BLS rankings provide a concise overview of the future of the U.S. job market. You will find significant statistics like the thousands employed in each field in 2006 versus projections for 2016, the percent change in positions anticipated, the median annual wage for each career, and the most common level of education or training that the professionals working in these fields possess. Even if you aren’t interested in these occupations specifically, it’s always important to have a grasp of what’s going on in terms of national employment. Popular fields will have busy facilities, and facilities need professionals from every type of industry to operate effectively. So happy degree/job hunting!