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Service sector employment gains in solid jobs report; manufacturing and construction lose jobs |
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From Economic Policy Institute: For analysis of the most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, read EPI's Jobs Picture. The nation's payrolls expanded by 132,000 jobs last month, according to today's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Unemployment ticked up slightly to 4.5%, in a jobs report characterized by solid employment gains in service industries and losses in factories and construction. With upward revisions of 42,000 to October and September's job gains, the average monthly gain this year has been 149,000, about the level needed to keep the labor market expanding apace and prevent unemployment from rising. One additional concern from today's report is the decline in employment associated with non -residential building, as positive job growth here helped to offset residential losses in earlier months. Businesses in professional services (engineering firms, legal services, computer systems design) continue to expand employment, adding 43,000 last month. One standout weak sector in services is information, including two sub-industries that appear to be undergoing continuing restructuring: publishing and telecom. Turning to wages, the hourly wage rate for blue-collar production workers and non-managers in services is up 4.1% over the past year, a growth rate ample enough to solidly surpass recent inflation readings that have been well below 2% (weekly earnings were up 4.4% over the past year). Finally, most forecasts are for the overall economy to continue growing below trend, likely taking any pressure off wage growth in coming months. Finally, while today's report is upbeat outside of the troubled sectors noted above, with this release, we now have employment data through the first five years of the current recovery, which began in November 2001.
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