As consumers continue to limit their spending, increase their savings rate, and decrease their credit balances to protect themselves from the unknowns in the economy, businesses across nearly all industry sectors continue to cut jobs.
The government reported today that the U.S. economy lost another 598,000 jobs in January, the biggest monthly decline since December 1974.
The overwhelming number of lost jobs brings the national employment rate to 7.6%, up from December’s 7.2%. Analysts had predicted a rate of 7.5%.
Since the start of the recession in December 2007, payroll employment has declined by 3.6 million – and about half of the decline has been over the past three months. Nearly all major industries lost jobs in January.
Currently, 11.6 million are unemployed. The number of unemployed has increased by 4.1 million over the past twelve months, and the unemployment rate has risen by 2.7%
Another 2.1 million are also unemployed, and have looked for work in the past year with no luck. But they don’t count towards the official unemployment number or rate because they didn’t look for work in the four weeks preceding the government’s survey.
2.6 million Americans remain unemployed for the long-term, those who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer. Emergency Unemployment Compensation was approved last fall to extend jobless benefits for up to an additional 33 weeks beyond regular state benefits.
Jobs continue to be lost in nearly all major industries, with manufacturing losing the largest portion at 207,000. Construction also lost big, the industry shed 111,000 jobs. 76,000 temp help positions, 745,000 retail jobs, 44,000 transportation and warehousing jobs, and 42,000 jobs in financial services were lost in January.
Health care is one sector that continues to add jobs, though the relatively small gain of 19,000 will hardly make a dent in the vast number of unemployed persons. Private education jobs increased by 33,000.
The average work week remained unchanged from the previous month at 33.3 hours, seasonally adjusted. Hourly earnings for production and non-supervisory positions increased slightly for the third consecutive month. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earning increased by 3.9% and average weekly earnings rose by 2.7%.
President Obama has stressed the urgency in passing a stimulus bill quickly and warned that without it, the recession could linger for years and millions more jobs could be lost.
Source:
U.S. Department of Labor – Bureau of Labor Statistics
