Comparing Recessions and Recoveries: Job Changes

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Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Chart by Amanda Cox.
Horizontal axis shows months. Vertical axis shows the ratio of that month’s nonfarm payrolls to the nonfarm payrolls at the start of recession. Note: Because employment is a lagging indicator, the dates for these employment trends are not exactly synchronized with National Bureau of Economic Research’s official business cycle dates.

By CATHERINE RAMPELL

The United States added just 18,000 nonfarm payroll jobs over all in June, the Labor Department reported Friday, after having added 25,000 jobs the previous month. Neither figure is statistically significant from zero, given that the growth is compared to a base of 131 million jobs.

June’s employment growth numbers were only about a tenth of what economists had been forecasting.

Some of the biggest (although still modest) gains were in professional and technical services, leisure and hospitality, and health care. Government at all levels — federal, state and local — shed workers. Most of the local jobs lost were teaching jobs.

Even most of the winners, though, have a long way to go before returning to their prerecession levels.

More
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/comparing-recessions-and-recoveries-job-changes-2/