Last week’s release of the December jobs data [1] reveal industry employment trends for the whole year and afford us an opportunity to review the employment picture for 2011. Broad-based economic and job growth is key to reducing the ranks of the jobless, and certainly 2011 brought positive steps in that direction as joblessness finally began to decline, and the unemployment rate decreased to 8.5 percent.
Notably, private sector employers added more than 1.9 million jobs during 2011 [2], with nearly all major industry sectors posting some net gains for the year.
Leading the way with 452,000 net new jobs was the professional and business services industry sector, with hiring in the good-paying “professional and technical services” industries accounting for more than half of these gains. Firms in these industries provide services ranging from management consulting to computer systems design, accounting, engineering, and architecture, and on average, workers earn about $35 an hour. During 2011, professional and technical services added 246,000 net new jobs, up from 40,000 in 2010.
Mining and logging posted the fastest growth across major industries by far, with employment up 12 percent over the year. “Support activities for mining” and oil and gas extraction fueled this growth. Employment trends in these industries generally track closely with petroleum prices.
U.S. factories brought back 225,000 jobs last year, with the most pronounced gains in transportation equipment (79,000, including 50,000 in motor vehicles), fabricated metal products (64,000), machinery (60,000), primary metals (26,000). This represents the strongest job gains for this sector since 1997. At the same time, the average workweek for factory production workers, an official leading economic indicator, ratcheted up 0.2 hours to 41.5 hours—matching its highest level not just since the end of the recession but since mid 2000.
Two areas where job losses have persisted are government and the information industries. Public sector employment shrank by 280,000 jobs, or about 1.3 percent, led by the loss of 113,000 in local schools, 68,000 jobs in local government administration, 78,000 in state government administration, and 31,000 in the postal service. (Employment at state colleges and universities was essentially flat.) Job losses in wired and wireless telecommunication firms accounted for most of the employment decline in information.
Nevertheless and notwithstanding the employment growth of 2011, with more than 13 million people actively looking for work and several million more on the sidelines, we must not only maintain the growth of 2011 but build upon it in 2012.
~Mark Doms, Chief Economist, U.S. Department of Commerce
January 12, 2012
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