August was another tough month for American workers and their employers

2008-09-08

Data released last Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show a loss of 84,000 jobs in August and the unemployment rate jumped to 6.1%.

The job losses cut across most industries but once again hit manufacturing especially hard. 61,000 jobs were lost in that industry.

Trade, transportation, and utilities lost 35,000 jobs, with two-thirds of the cuts in the retail industry - mostly among auto dealers - and another third in wholesale. Surprisingly, considering the mortgage crisis and the decline in home sales, building material and garden supply stores added more than 5,000 jobs. Sporting goods, hobby, book, and music stores also saw a growth in jobs.

The job losses were trivial for transportation and warehousing (just over -4,000), leisure and hospitality (-4,000), the information industry (-3,000), and Financial activities (also -3,000), while professional and business services took a huge hit, -53,000 jobs. The losses in that industry were driven by a decline in jobs in the employment services sector (-53,000), especially temporary help (-37,000).

On the positive side, educational services grew by 16,000 jobs and health care added another 26,000 jobs. Finally, federal, state and local government all added jobs while the United States Postal service shed almost 7,000 workers.

But all is not bleak for individual job seekers, even if the overall job market is contracting. For example, the IT Jungle reports that the IT Hiring Index predicts continued if slowing hiring in the IT sector through the end of this year. SurePayroll claims that small business have increased their hiring by 2.4% year to date, in part because of falling salaries. Online retail giant Amazon.com has hundreds of job listings on its website in Washington state according to Seattle Post-Intelligencer (548 to be specific, although the listings go all the way back to mid-June in 2007. 279 jobs were listed in September and August this year). Amazon is also hiring hundreds of workers at its Kentucky fulfillment centers.

There is a number of different career paths that continue to provide opportunity for workers at different educational levels. Skilled trade workers like welders, plumbers and electricians appear to remain in in strong demand, as do white-collar jobs such as accounting and various high-tech jobs.

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