Largest Monthly Job Losses in 34 Years

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January 27, 2011


America continues to reel as reports of layoffs, financial woes, and foreclosures dominate the mass media. The current employment situation, as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), reinforces this trend reporting a 0.2% rise in the unemployment rate to 6.7% in November, marking a loss of 533,000 jobs over the month and the largest monthly job cut in 34 years. Furthermore, November’s drop in payroll employment follows declines of 403,000 in September and 320,000 in October. Job losses were extensive and widespread across the major industry sectors in November. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, as recently announced by the National Bureau of Economic Research, the number of unemployed persons increased by 2.7 million, and the unemployment rate rose by 1.7 percentage points. Among the unemployed, the number of persons who lost their job and did not expect to be recalled to work increased by 298,000 to 4.7 million in November: the size of this group has increased by 2.0 million over the past 12 months. While BLS reports a job loss of 533,000 in November, this reduction in the workforce actually brings job losses to 1.9 million since the start of the recession in December 2007. Two-thirds of these losses occurred in the last 3 months. In November, employment declined in nearly all major industries, although health care continued to add jobs. Furthermore, during the month of November, employment continued to decline in manufacturing with a loss of 85,000 jobs. Widespread job losses are reported to have occurred among the component industries. Manufacturing employment also shows a decline of 604,000 jobs since December 2007. Within professional and business services, the employment services industry lost 101,000 jobs during November, bringing total job losses since December 2007 to 495,000. Conversely, health care paints a rosier picture as it reports employment growing by 34,000 in November: over the past 12 months, health care has added 369,000 jobs.
Article courtesy of Kennedy Information Recruiting Trends providing leading edge insights and strategies for the recruiting professional

Originally posted by Candice A

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