The country loses close to 160,000 jobs in September, braces itself for bigger hits in the upcoming months |
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2008-10-06 Friday morning marked the release of September's employment situation report by the BLS, as well as the ninth month in a row that the country has posted a net loss in jobs. Not our most impressive feat. The loss of 159,000 positions is a lot harder to ignore than cuts in previous months.
On the bright side, the health care industry is still generating employment opportunities, but these gains slowed some last month, with just around 17,000 jobs added. Most of these positions were in ambulatory health care services. Local government education added another 16,000 jobs. The mining industry added 8,000.
Most of the job cuts in September were typical, save for the leisure and hospitality sector (-17,000), which includes food services and drinking places (-4,800 jobs). Up until the last few months, food services and drinking places had been one of our nation's more resilient employment industries.
The manufacturing, construction, and retail trade industries topped all others in jobs losses with 51,000, 35,000, and 40,000 positions lost, respectively. Professional and business services employment decreased by 27,000 positions, while the transportation and warehousing and financial activities sectors both posted double-digit losses in the thousands.
The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory workers declined by 0.1 hours, while the average pay for these workers rose another three cents. Average weekly earnings in the U.S. in September totaled $610.51. Online Careers Blog Home 
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