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Written by Kenneth D'Amica
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Monday, 28 July 2008 02:13 |
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Civilian non-agricultural employment in the U.S. fell in five of the last seven months. Job losses, however, have not been uniform across sectors of the economy.
Manufacturing employment has been trending downward since the beginning of 2001, though the pace of losses has slackened. Between January 2001 and January 2004, more than 2.8 million manufacturing jobs were lost. From January 2004 to the present, only 725,000 were lost.
Manufacturing employment has been trending downward since the beginning of 2001. After 2003, employment in all major sectors aside from manufacturing trended upwards. However, in the last seven months, there have been modest losses in trade and transportation, construction, and, to a lesser extent, financial activities. These sectors tend to be the most cyclically responsive (meaning simply that they fall during times of economic recession). In addition, construction and financial activities are likely the sectors most directly affected by the current turmoil in the housing industry. A total of 600,000 jobs have been lost in these areas since the end of 2006.
Government, education, health care, and leisure, on the other hand, have continued to gain jobs. It should be noted that public education and hospitals are counted as government. 
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