One-quarter of a Million Job Losses so far in 2008
Total employment in the U.S. economy stayed essentially flat (-20,000 jobs) in April 2008 versus the previous month, according to the latest labor force report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released today. However, total job losses since the beginning of this year have amounted to 260,000. April was the fourth month in a row without an increase.

The year-over-year change in total employment has dropped to +0.3% from a high of +2.1% in early 2006. The largest percentage declines have come in construction (-5.0% year over year) and manufacturing (-2.3%). The current job losses in construction contrast with growth of nearly +8.0% two years ago.

Employment change in manufacturing has been mostly negative for the past seven years, although two periods of “no change” on a year-over-year basis were achieved in late 2004 and much of 2006.

Rapid Declines in Some Sectors have Stopped
There is encouraging news to be derived from the latest numbers. As can be seen from the accompanying charts, recent rapid declines in employment in several sectors have come to a stop, or been slightly reversed, in the most recent period.

For example, the decline in financial services employment has been decidedly less negative over the past two months. And retail trade, transportation and warehousing and professional and business services all saw a leveling off (after considerable declines) in the slopes of their percentage-change curves.

Three Sectors are Sustaining Employment
Two sectors are continuing to provide solid increases in employment: (1) education and health (+3.0%); and (2) leisure and hospitality (+2.4%). Along with the percentage change charts, there are graphs showing the simple progression over time of total employment (seasonally adjusted) in each sector. According to this measure, steady long-term upward progressions of employment are most readily apparent in the aforementioned sectors (1) and (2), plus one other – government.

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