The unemployment situation changed very little with 14.9 million unemployed persons in February, and the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported today. Non-farm payroll employment fell by 36,000 in February and has fallen by 8.4 million since the start of the recession in December 2007.
White House advisor Christina Romer said in a statement, “Although the labor market remains severely distressed, today’s report on the employment situation is consistent with the pattern of stabilization and gradual labor market healing we have been seeing in recent months.”
And for what could possibly be good news under the economic circumstances, the severe winter weather last month in much of the mid-Atlantic is likely to have negatively skewed the February employment survey.
“Someone who has a job but missed the entire pay period that included the 12th of the month because of the weather, and so did not receive a paycheck, is not counted as being on the payroll,” Romer said.
Employment fell by 64,000 in construction for February. This heavy loss is in line with construction employment over the past six months, according to the BLS. Since the start of the recession, employment in the construction industry has fallen by 1.9 million. Another 18,000 jobs were lost in information, for a total loss of 297,000 in this sector since December 2007.
Employment in temporary help services grew by 48,000 in February. Since reaching its low point in September 2009, temp help employment has risen by 284,000. Health care employment has remained strong throughout the recession and also continued to trend up for February.
Employment in retail trade remained relatively stable in February after a sizeable gain in the previous month. Manufacturing employment balanced out after small job gains in a number of component industries were offset by job losses in motor vehicles and parts and in chemicals.
In February, employment in the federal government edged up. The hiring of 15,000 temporary workers for Census 2010 was partially offset by a decline in U.S. Postal Service employment.
Among the major worker groups categorized by the BLS, the unemployment rate in February was the highest among teenagers at 25%. The unemployment rate was 15.8% for blacks, 12.4% for Hispanics, 8.8% for whites, and 8.4% for Asians.
There were 6.1 million people who have been unemployed for the long-term, for 27 weeks or more. About four out of every ten unemployed workers fall into the category of long-term unemployed, and the number of long-term unemployed has been at approximately the same level since December.
After a large decrease in the previous month, in February there was an increase from 8.3 to 8.8 million in the number of people working part-time for economic reasons. This group includes workers whose hours have been cut back and workers who prefer a full-time job but are not able to find one.
Another 2.5 million people were marginally attached to the work force in February, up by 476,000 from a year earlier. This group consists of individuals who are not employed but would like to work and have looked for work sometime in the past year. They are not counted in the unemployment numbers because they had not looked for work in the four weeks immediately preceeding the BLS survey.
Out of the marginally attached, almost half of them – 1.2 million – were discouraged workers and this number has increased by 473,000 since a year ago. Discouraged workers are people who want to work but have given up on looking for employment because they believe there are no jobs out there for them. The remaining 1.3 million in the marginally attached group did not look for work due to family responsibilities or to attend school.
“As always, it is important not to read too much into any individual data release, positive or negative,” Romer said. “Because of the disruptions from the weather, this is especially true of today’s employment data. Although the overall trajectory of the economy has improved dramatically over the past year and appears to be continuing to improve, there will surely continue to be bumps in the road ahead.”
Sources:
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
The White House
