Economic Report: Non-Farm Payrolls - March
Nonfarm payrolls in the US fell for the 15th straight month, as another 663,000 jobs were lost in March. January, with 741,000 total job losses, became the worst month since 1949, after sharp revisions were accounted for. There were no such revisions for February. The increased losses and revisions signal a worsening labor market, as 5.1 million jobs were lost since the recession began in December 2007. And the decline has been fast and fierce, with payrolls falling by 3.7 million just in the last six months. That’s a 2.7% decline, the second-largest percentage loss in 50 years.
The unemployment rate surged in March, gaining 0.4%, to a 8.5% annual rate. That’s the highest level in over 25 years. Its meteoric rise of 3.6% in the past few months accounts for most of the gain since the beginning of the recession.
Job losses were deep and widespread across most industries, according to the survey of work sites. Only 1 industry was hiring; health care services with a small gain of 14,000.
Via MarketWatch:
According to a survey of hundreds of thousands of work sites, goods-producing industries shed 305,000 jobs, and the services industries cut 358,000. Of 271 industries, just 22% were hiring in March.
Manufacturing industries cut 126,000 workers. Hours worked in manufacturing fell by 2.1%. Construction cut 161,000 jobs. The unemployment rate for construction workers rose to 22.3%.
In the services, professional and business services cut 133,000 jobs, including 72,000 temp jobs. Retail companies cut 48,000 jobs. Financial services cut 43,000 jobs. Transportation industries lost 34,000.
The unemployment rate gives you an idea of the magnitude of job losses we are experiencing. The only problem is that the number doesn’t include discouraged workers or workers forced to take part-time jobs, which was also widespread. Just to give you an idea:
A separate gauge of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and workers who can find only part-time work rose to a record 15.6%, with data reached back only to 1994.
The number of workers who want full-time work but can only find part-time jobs rose by 423,000 to 9 million in March.
Total hours worked in the economy also fell by 1%. The average workweek fell by 6 minutes to a record-low 33.2 hours. What this tells you is that more people are working less hours, whether they like it or not.
Read the Full Report.
- April 3rd
[...] Contrarian Musings placed an interesting blog post on Economic Report: Non-Farm Payrolls - MarchHere’s a brief overviewNonfarm payrolls in the US fell for the 15th straight month, as another 663,000 jobs were lost in March. January, with 741,000 total job losses, became the worst month since 1949, after sharp revisions were accounted for. There were no such revisions for February. The increased losses and revisions signal a worsening labor market, as 5.1 million jobs were lost since the recession began in December 2007. And the decline has been fast and fierce, with payrolls falling by 3.7 million just in the l [...]
[...] Contrarian Musings added an interesting post today on Economic Report: Non-Farm Payrolls - MarchHere’s a small readingNonfarm payrolls in the US fell for the 15th straight month, as another 663,000 jobs were lost in March. January, with 741,000 total job losses, became the worst month since 1949, after sharp revisions were accounted for. There were no such revisions for February. The increased losses and revisions signal a worsening labor market, as 5.1 million jobs were lost since the recession began in December 2007. And the decline has been fast and fierce, with payrolls falling by 3.7 million just in the l [...]